Stephen J. Mackwell is a researcher in geophysics, specializing in laboratory-based studies of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of geological materials.

[1] He has authored or co-authored over 80 articles in international scientific journals and is an editor of a book on comparative climatology of terrestrial planets published by the University of Arizona Press.

He earned his Ph.D. in Geophysics in March 1985 from the Research School of Earth Sciences of the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

[4] Mackwell returned to the United States in late 2002 as director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, Texas, a division of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).

From February 2019 until June 2021, Mackwell served as the Deputy Executive Officer of the American Institute of Physics in College Park, MD.

From April 2022 to the present, Mackwell serves as the Section Head for Disciplinary Programs in the Division of Earth Sciences of the Geosciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA. Stephen J. Mackwell has been named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017; Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2010; Stipendiat der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung in Bayreuth, Germany in 1996; Ministère de L'Education Nationale, Academie de Lille, Nommé Professeur in 1996; and Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America in 1996.

[10] Hitoshi Shiozawa and Minoru Kizawa originally discovered asteroid 5292 Mackwell on January 12, 1991, in Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.

5292 Mackwell has an absolute magnitude of 11.9 and is part of the main asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter.