After receiving his Ph.D. in geology in 1966, Greeley worked for
Standard Oil Company of California. Through his military service, he was assigned to NASA's Ames Research Center in 1967 where he worked in a civilian capacity in preparation for the
Apollo missions to the
Moon. He remained at NASA to conduct research in
planetary geology. With the results of the planetary missions in the early 1970s, attention shifted to
Mars and research on
volcanism and
aeolian processes through the analysis of
Mariner 6, 7, and 9 data. He became a science team member on the Mars
Viking mission from 1976 through 1980. In 1977, Greeley joined the faculty at Arizona State University with a joint professorship in Geology and the
Center for Meteorite Studies. His latest research focused on the wind processes on
Earth, Mars,
Venus, and
Titan, field studies of basaltic volcanism, and photogeological mapping of the planets and satellites including
Europa. He was also a science team member on the
Mars Exploration Rover program and the
European Space Agency's Mars Express mission. Greeley served on various NASA and
National Academy of Sciences panels to assess
space science and planetary geology activities. He chaired the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics Management Operations Working Group, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Lunar and Planetary Exploration, and the NASA Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group. He was co-chair of the NASA Science Definition Team for the Europa flagship mission, then the Planetary Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council and served in that capacity until his death in 2011. Over the course of his career, Greeley wrote or co-wrote more than 400 papers and 16 books. ==Awards and honors==