Charles F. Kennel (born August 20, 1939) is an American plasma physicist and former Associate Administrator of NASA.

[1][2] He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences[3] and won the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics in 1997.

[5] Kennel received a bachelor's degree in astronomy from Harvard College and a doctorate in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University.

He was a member and chair of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Science Committee which he quit in 2006.

[7] Kennel was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987[11] and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1991.