Louis John Lanzerotti (born April 16, 1938) is a Distinguished Research Professor of physics in the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, New Jersey.
Lanzerotti earned a BS in Engineering Physics in 1960 from University of Illinois. He obtained his MS and PhD degrees, both in Physics, and both from Harvard University in 1963 and 1965 respectively.
Lanzerotti has authored or co-authored of more than 500 refereed publications, contributing to research that includes studies of space plasmas and geophysics, and engineering problems related to the impact of atmospheric and space processes (a.k.a. "space weather") on terrestrial and spaceborne technologies. Lanzerotti co-authored a book on radiation belt physics and has co-edited four books. He has eight patents issued or filed.
Lanzerotti joined AT&T's Bell Laboratories in 1965 to engage in engineering and scientific research on Earth’s radiation belts, the existence of which was confirmed a few years earlier by James Van Allen. AT&T’s Telstar satellites had recently been launched, providing Lanzerotti and his colleagues with data for analyzing and interpreting the radiation belts and their effects of radiation on space systems. This marked the beginning of Lanzerotti’s leadership in the field now called “space weather.” Lanzerotti's work led to him being named a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies.
Lanzerotti has worked with multiple satellite programs and space missions, including the ATS-1 and ATS-3 communications satellites, the interplanetary IMP 4 and IMP 5 explorer missions, the Voyager missions to the outer planets and interstellar medium, the ACE solar wind mission, and the Cassini mission to Saturn. Furthermore, Lanzerotti has been awarded many NSF research grants including as the principal investigator for instruments aboard the Ulysses mission over the poles of the Sun, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and more recently the Van Allen Probes, launched in 2012 to study Earth's radiation belts.