Komacek and Landis Complete Ph.D.

Congratulations to Thaddeus (Tad) Komacek and Margaret Landis!

Tad defended his Ph.D. dissertation, The Atmospheric Circulation and Evolution of Close-In Extrasolar Gas Giant Planets, on April 11. He soon begins a prestigious 51 Pegasi b Fellowship at the University of Chicago, where he plans to continue his research into the atmospheres of Earth-like planets.

Tad's research interests include magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the atmospheric dynamics of hot Jupiters, the interior evolution of giant planets, and long-term surface-atmosphere climate feedbacks that control the climate and oceans of terrestrial planets. He has published work in each of these research areas. In addition, Tad makes time for science outreach to high school students and has presented conference posters on these outreach activities.

Tad earned several honors and awards as a graduate student at LPL, including the Gerard P. Kuiper Memorial Award (2017), the department's highest award for graduate student scholarship. He was awarded the LPL Carson Fellowship in his first year as a graduate student, and is a two-time recipient of the College of Science Galileo Circle Scholarship. In 2014, Tad won a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (Magnetism in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres). Tad's advisor was Professor Adam Showman.

Margaret defended her dissertation, Icy Craters on Mars and Ceres, on May 17. Next up for Margaret is a position at the Planetary Science Institute (Albuquerque), where she will work with Tom Prettyman on the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND) instrument on the Dawn mission.

Margaret's research is based on age dating of landscapes with impact craters and simulations of ice stability. She has applied her expertise in this to multiple regions on Mars as well as Ceres. Her work on ice accumulation rates at Mars’ North pole was published in a 2016 GRL paper. Margaret received NSF funding that allowed her to spend summer 2017 at USGS Flagstaff to work on a crater catalog for the South Polar layered deposits. Her recent work on Ceres includes collaboration with the Dawn team and resulted in another first-author paper.

Margaret is a co-recipient of the 2018 Kuiper Memorial Award and was named Planetary Sciences College of Science Outstanding Scholar for 2018. Other awards include an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and two Galileo Circle Scholarships. In 2017, she was selected to participate in a Keck Institute for Space Science study to advance Mars polar science, and in 2018, she was awarded an LPI Career Development Award. As a student, Margaret was active in service and outreach and won the LPL Outreach award in 2017. Professor Shane Byrne was Margaret's advisor.