Joana Voigt Wins Kuiper Award

Joana Voigt Wins Kuiper Award

Joana Voigt is the recipient of the LPL Kuiper Memorial Award and College of Science Excellence in Scholarship Award for LPL for 2022. Joana is a fourth-year student whose research focuses on comparisons between volcanic processes on Earth and Mars.

Joana has an impressive publication record that includes 12 peer-reviewed articles, including 4 first-author and 1 co-first author papers. Three first-author articles from 2021 summarized her work studying the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption in Iceland, providing insight into: (1) geomorphological mapping of the lava flow-field to understand its lava emplacement dynamics during fissure-fed eruption; (2) statistical characterization of lava surface roughness to inform mapping studies of lava flow-field using remote sensing data (e.g., topography and radar); and (3) determination of the relationship between lava flow facies and time average effusion rates to determine how eruption rates influence the products of large fissure-fed eruptions. Joana has also published work related to the characterization of the InSight landing site, cryovolcanism on Europa, and impact melts on the Moon.

In 2021, Joana received the Amelia Earhart Fellowship to support her field work, and a NASA FINESST to complete a study related to the four-dimensional reconstruction of lava flow emplacement within Elysium Planitia using geological mapping and SHARAD radar analysis. She has also served on two NASA panels as an executive secretary and established a visiting studentship at Caltech with Professor Bethany Ehlmann.

Joana is the Deputy Principal Investigator of Associate Professor Christopher Hamilton’s RAVEN: Rover–Aerial Vehicle Exploration Network project to field test rovers and drones in Iceland to inform the next generation of Mars Science Helicopter mission. She also works with Hamilton, who serves as her dissertation advisor, on a JPL Strategic University Partnership Program to test science operational scenarios for the exploration of lunar lava tubes, in support of JPL’s Discovery Mission concept Moon Diver. Joana is also part of a newly selected proposal to investigate volcanic outgassing from flood lava eruptions on Mars and their effects on climate.

Joana plans to graduate in December 2022.

The citation for the Kuiper Award reads: "This award is presented to students of the planetary sciences who best exemplify, through the high quality of their researches and the excellence of their scholastic achievements, the goals and standards established and maintained by Gerard P. Kuiper, founder of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona."  To contribute to the Kuiper Memorial Award, visit https://give.uafoundation.org/science-lpl