Focus on Alumni

NASA Planetary Scientist, Barbara Cohen, Uses Samples Gathered from Rover Missions for Geochronology

May 15, 2020

LPL Alum Barbara Cohen (2000), in interviewed by Purdue College of Science's Superheroes of Science.

Martian Ice Revealed: Dr. Ali Bramson

April 26, 2020

Dr. Ali Bramson, a planetary scientist with expertise in spacecraft remote sensing of ice on other worlds, discusses how to find ice on Mars.

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Dr. Ali Bramson, Postdoctoral Research Associate, UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

Alumna Explores Existence of New Planet with Wittenberg Series’ Speaker

Sept. 24, 2019

Wittenberg graduate Kathryn Volk is boldly going where few others have gone before – to the Kuiper Belt along the far edges of the solar system in hopes of proving the existence of a few more planets.

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The Dusty Plains of Arcadia Planitia (podcast)

Sept. 23, 2019

SpaceX has been requesting HiRISE images from an area called Arcadia Planitia as potential landing sites for their Starship vehicle. Dr Ali Bramson, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab and expert on the region, discusses what’s going on there and why SpaceX might be interested.

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Meet The Nuclear-Powered Self-Driving Drone NASA Is Sending To A Moon Of Saturn

Sept. 17, 2019

On the face of it, NASA's newest probe sounds incredible. Known as Dragonfly, it is a dual-rotor quadcopter (technically an octocopter, even more technically an X8 octocopter); it's roughly the size of a compact car; it's completely autonomous; it's nuclear powered; and it will hover above the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. LPL alumna Dr. Elizabeth Turtle is the missions Principal Investigator.

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Artist rendition of the Dragonfly drone on Saturn's moon Titan.

Scientist Uses HPHT Presses to Study Planet Formation

Oct. 4, 2018

To gemologists, the high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) press speaks of synthetic diamond growth or newfangled methods of diamond color treatment. For Valerie Hillgren, a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Geophysical Laboratory, the presses that create these conditions are a means to another end: studying how the terrestrial planets of our solar system might have formed.