Focus on Alumni

Joshua Lothringer (2019), assistant professor in the department of physics at Utah Valley University, helped discover the presence of carbon dioxide on an exoplanet 700 light years from Earth using the JWST.

The Exocast team are back and this time joined by the esteemed Nikole Lewis, Professor and Deputy director of the Carl Sagan institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA.

Exploring the solar system is a long game, with travel times measured in years. And the time from when we first propose a mission to when our spacecraft sits on the launch pad, ready to leave Earth or die trying, is often much longer still.

Ali Bramson (2018), assistant professor in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, explains how radar can be used to analyze a planet’s surface and what that could mean for the next mission to Mars.

Maria Steinrueck (2021) named 51 Pegasi b Fellow. The fellowship provides postdoctoral scientists with the opportunity to conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research in planetary astronomy.

Sarah Hörst (2011) and Nikole Lewis (2012) team up to uncover properties of photochemical hazes in extrasolar planet atmospheres.

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight spacecraft is hitching a ride to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket along with the privately-developed Hakuto-R moon lander. LPL Alum Barbara Cohen (2000) is the principal investigator for the Lunar Flashlight.

Barbara Cohen (2000) is the Lunar Flashlight principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Splace Flight Center.

Ali Bramson (2018) is part of Purdue's planetary science program, one of the largest programs in the country to use NASA spacecraft data to learn about the solar system.

Alum John Moores (2008) has been named Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency. He will act as the strategic advisor on science issues as they relate to space and represent the CSA to the international community.