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Paul Withers, PhD

Paul is working with his advisor, Steve Bougher, on weather in the Martian upper atmosphere. He has been involved with mission support for Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey. He is now comparing data from aerobraking to predictions made by the Mars Thermosphere Global Circulation Model. He is also involved in any number of other projects.

I defended my PhD dissertation in March 2003 and will start a postdoctoral position with Michael Mendillo and John Clarke at Boston University's Center for Space Physics after graduation in May. The dissertation is available online. Here, in PDF format, are my CV and research plan that I used for this job search. A crude version of my resume is available. Its main purpose is for me to cut and paste from it to generate targeted resumes quickly, hence its lack of formatting.

Download my free software for analyzing the atmospheric entries of spacecraft.

With LPL since: 1998

Current Projects:
Martian Upper Atmosphere
Ridges in the Martian Northern Plains
Atmospheric Structure Profiles from Planetary Entry Accelerometers
Simple Extremal Climate Models

Previous Projects:
Age of lunar crater Giordano Bruno
Simple Asteroid Shape Models

Current LPL PhD Advisor:
Steve Bougher

Involvement in Scientific Community:
Member of American Geophysical Union's Planetary Sciences Section since 2000
Member of American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences since 2000
Member of UK Planetary Forum since 2001
Winner of NASA's Deep Space 2 Mars Microprobes naming competition, 1999
Worked with Greg Neumann and MOLA group at Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as part of GSSP program, summer 2000
Worked with John Zarnecki and Beagle 2 group at the Open University in Britain as consultant, summer 2001
Attended LPSC (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002), DPS (2000, 2001), Spring AGU (2000, 2001), Fall AGU (2000), LPLC (1999, 2000, 2001), Brown-Vernadsky Microsymposium (2001), 5th Mars Conference (1999), JPL Planetary Science Summer School (1999), Geoplanets European Planetary Geology Summer School (2002), MOLA Team Meetings (Breckenridge 2000, Providence 2001), AGU Teaching Workshop (Fall 2000), pre-LPSC Teaching Workshop (2000, 2002)
Received University of Arizona's Kuiper Memorial Award, 2002
Author of publicly available programs to study atmospheric entries of spacecraft, 2002
Invited colloquium presentation at Imperial College, summer 2001
Community Discussion Forum Moderator for Solar System Exploration Decadal Survey
Member of Education and Public Outreach Community Panel for Solar System Exploration Decadal Survey
Reviewer for Icarus, Meteoritics and Planetary Science and Science.

Spacecraft involvement:
Mars Global Surveyor / Accelerometer
Mars Global Surveyor / Laser Altimeter
Mars Climate Orbiter (until it blew up...)
Mars 2001 Odyssey
Beagle 2

Local involvement:
Editing maestro, Christmas Skits
Incompetent participant, LPL Intramural Soccer Team
AV assistant, LPLC II
University hiking club, the Ramblers
Bratfest T-shirt salesman and extortionist

Recent references:
Comparison of Viking descent data and MOLA topography reveals kilometer-scale offset in Mars atmosphere profiles (2002) Withers, Lorenz, and Neumann, Icarus, 159, 259 - 261
206K PDF

Comment and reply on "Meteor storm evidence against the recent formation of lunar crater Giordano Bruno" by Paul Withers (2002) Nockolds and Withers, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 37, 465 - 466
35K PDF

Winds in the martian upper atmosphere from MGS aerobraking density profiles (2002) Withers et al, Fall AGU, Abstract #P61C-0353
Abstract 4K HTML
Presentation 484K PDF

Measurements of Winds in the Martian Upper Atmosphere from the MGS Accelerometer (2002) Withers et al, DPS, Abstract #5.05
Abstract 3K HTML
Presentation 149K PDF

MGS Accelerometer-derived profiles of Upper Atmospheric Pressures and Temperatures: Similarities, Differences, and Winds (2002) Withers et al, Spring AGU, Abstract #P41A-10
Abstract 5K HTML
Presentation 604K PDF

Development of software for analysing entry accelerometer data in preparation for the Beagle 2 mission to Mars: Towards a Publicly Available Toolkit, 2002, 33rd LPSC, Abstract #1203
Abstract 29K PDF
Presentation 642K PDF

Errors in Viking Lander Atmospheric Profiles discovered using MOLA Topography (2002) Withers et al, 33rd LPSC, Abstract #1294
Abstract 22K PDF
Presentation 1.6M PDF

Have a look at some more of my papers, projects, presentations, proposals, and piffle.

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