Michael H. Hecht is a research scientist, associate director for research management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory, and former deputy project director of the Event Horizon Telescope. He served as lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer instrument on the Phoenix Mars lander, and as principal investigator for the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) instrument on the Mars 2020 rover.