Department News

Matthew Chojnacki joined LPL in January 2013, working as a post-doctoral fellow for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) with that cam

Dr. Steve Kortenkamp has become the new Coordinator of the Teaching Teams Program (TTP).

Eneida Lima recently joined LPL as an IT Support Analyst, Principal. She comes to LPL from the UA Department of Computer Science, where she worked for four years; her responsibilities included instructional labs, desktops, and servers. She also led the migration of most of the department’s infrastructure servers to a virtual environment.

In May, the OSIRIS-REx mission received its confirmation, a major marker in the journey from proposal to actual mission. The confirmation gives the mission the authority to begin building hardware.

The confirmation provided the impetus for the retirements of two key figures in the mission, LPL’s Peter Smith, and Lockheed-Martin’s Joe Vellinga, the Flight Systems Manager.

Northern New Mexico and the KT Boundary Layer
by Shane Byrne

This trip took us farther afield than any in recent memory, as we ventured into New Mexico and Colorado and logged about 1500 miles over five days. We had three great sites to visit and couldn’t decide between them and so in the end decided to do everything.

This summer, LPL graduate students, led by Rob Zellem, worked with the UA College of Science to develop and organize the Starlight Science Cinema concept. Starlight Science Cinema features free science-themed movies screened outdoors on the UA campus, hosted by UA scientists who talk about their research, conduct a Q & A about the movie's premise, and, when appropriate, debunk the films' scientific themes.

Cassandra Lejoly is a senior at the University of Arizona, majoring in Math and Astronomy and minoring in Planetary Sciences and Physics.

October 12 was a busy night on the UA campus—in addition to Starlight Science Cinema, LPL students, faculty, and staff participated in events for International Observe the Moon Night, organized at the UA by Sanlyn Buxner (PSI Education and Research Specialist) and the Planetary Science Institute.