by Teddy Kareta

As everyone returns to campus at the end of August, one of the first events on the LPL calendar is the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference, or LPLC. LPLC is our graduate student organized and run internal conference which gives each member of the department and the Tucson space science community a chance to update each other on what they’ve been working on as of late. We are happy to say that LPLC 2019—organized this year by graduate students Teddy Kareta, Indujaa Ganesh, and Ben Sharkey—was a great success and continues the trend of the event growing in number of both attendees and presentations year over year.

This year had over 70 attendees and 43 presentations from high school age summer interns to esteemed emeritus researchers and included 15 presentations by graduate students. The winner of this year’s Best Graduate Student Talk award was Zarah Brown for her presentation, What’s Heating Saturn’s Thermosphere? Cassini Grand Finale Observations Show Connection Between Circulation and Heating. The invited speakers were 2018’s Best Grad Talk winners, Allison McGraw and Hamish Hay, as well as LPL Assistant Professor Tommi Koskinen and UArizona Gender & Women's Studies Professor Jennifer Croissant. The keynote was by new LPL Assistant Professor Jessica Barnes, titled Volatiles in the Inner Solar System: A View from Ureilites.

For the first time this year, LPLC was held in one of the newest and most environmentally friendly buildings on the University of Arizona campus, Engineering and Natural Resources 2 (ENR2). ENR2 is designed to look and feel like a slot canyon—the temperate sand-carved canyons seen in Northern Arizona and a favorite spot of many an LPL field trip. Professor Barnes’ talk was followed by a reception in the café and courtyard of the building, a beautiful green space fitting for the end of a long day spent talking about science and meeting new colleagues.

Chenliang Huang joined LPL in August 2019 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Assistant Professor Tommi Koskinen. His research focuses on developing models of the upper atmosphere of extrasolar gas giant planets to interpret existing observations and to prepare for the NASA Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE). Comparing the observed atomic lines (H, He, Na, Mg, Fe, etc.) in the transmission spectrum and the result suggested by the model, he tries to constrain the physical properties of the exoplanet upper atmosphere, such as its temperature, number densities of each species, mass loss rate, and radiation field.

Chenliang grew up in Beijing, China. He received his B.S. in Physics in 2011 from the Peking University and earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Virginia with Professor Phil Arras and Professor Roger Chevalier (2017). During his graduate program, Chenliang studied the Lyα resonant scattering within the atmosphere to interpret the observed Hα transmission spectrum of HD 189733b, and studied the effect of electron scattering that broaden the emission line of interacting supernovae. Before arriving at LPL, Chenliang was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada Las Vegas working with Assistant Professor Jason Steffen on the modeling of the interior structure of terrestrial planets. In his free time, Chenliang enjoys playing soccer and hiking.

Fayu Jiang has been with LPL since March 2019, when he began work as a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Professor Roger Yelle. Fayu's research focuses on the study of mesospheric thermal structure, aerosols, and wave activities on Mars with stellar occultation data from the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on board the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft.

Fayu grew up in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China. He received his B.E. in Material Science and Engineering from Shandong University in 2009. He earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. Fayu's graduate work focused on the study of small magnetic activities on the Sun with SDO and IRIS data. After graduation, Fayu shifted his research interests to planetary aeronomy, working with Professor Jun Cui on the atmospheric escape from Titan with Cassini/INMS data. During his free time, Fayu enjoys playing chess and swimming.

In May 2019, Antony Trinh began a position as a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Associate Professor Isamu Matsuyama. Antony's research seeks to constrain the interior structure of planets and moons by interpreting space-geodetically measurable global features, such as their topography, gravity field, tides, rotation, and obliquity. He is also interested in the heat budget and orbital evolution of satellite systems, in connection with the geological activity and tectonic patterns observed over the surface of these bodies.

Antony lived in Brussels, Belgium, before moving to Tucson. He completed his M.S. in Theoretical Physics at Université Libre de Bruxelles. He earned his Ph.D. degree at UC Louvain, conducting research at the Royal Observatory of Belgium on various topics, including the relationship between shape and gravity of planets and moons, the tides and rotation of terrestrial and icy bodies, the dynamics of rotating fluids, and the formation of the Martian moons. Antony's dissertation work combined Cassini's measurements of Enceladus's shape, gravity, and libration into a consistent model of the moon's interior. As a passionate advocate of reproducible research, he also developed a Mathematica package to assist in the theoretical modeling of geodynamic processes. In his free time, Antony enjoys a range of outdoor activities, but will happily move indoors as soon as he runs out of Belgian chocolate.

Congratulations to Sarah Peacock, LPL's newest alumna!

Sarah defended her dissertation, Predicting the Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation Environment Around Low-Mass Stars, on November 22, 2019; Professor Travis Barman served as Sarah's advisor. In January, Sarah will begin a postdoctoral position at LPL working with Travis Barman.

LPL is gearing up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing with a focus on the contributions that LPL scientists made to mapping the Moon and supporting the first lunar spacecraft missions. If you have an interest in learning about the role Gerard P. Kuiper played in bringing planetary science to Tucson, consider adding Derek Sears' biography of G.P. Kuiper to your summer reading list: Gerard P. Kuiper and the Rise of Modern Planetary Science (Derek W.G. Sears, 368p, University of Arizona Press, 2019). More information about the founding of LPL is available from Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets by Melissa L. Sevigny (184p, University of Arizona Press, 2016). Use discount code AZFLR to receive a 30% discount on your order from UA Press; the Sears biography will be for sale and available at a 40% discount at Summer Science Saturday.

The centerpiece of outreach for LPL in 2019 was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The public outreach and education events maintained a focus on local contributions to the Apollo program, with an emphasis on the contributions by LPL, which was established in 1960 in large part because Gerard Kuiper wanted to study the Moon. When President John Kennedy made sending humans to the Moon within the decade a national priority the next year, the fledgling LPL was perfectly situated.

For the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, LPL, the University of Arizona, and venues across the city of Tucson celebrated the anniversary and the foundational contributions made by scientists and talented engineers and craftspeople not only from LPL but also from other local organizations. In recognition of the local contributions, by Proclamation of Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, July 2019 was declared Tucson Moon Month. Venues and events across Tucson joined the fun by sponsoring Moon related exhibits, movies, and lectures as part of UArizona Apollo 11 50th anniversary moonfest events. The 2019 calendar was filled with a variety of activities, including LPL's annual Summer Science Saturday, held this year on July 20 and attended by 800 guests. Also on July 20, Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium provided special Apollo programming and the UA Special Collections Library debuted a wonderfully curated Moon exhibit, which showcased materials from the Ewen Whitaker collection, in addition to other exhibits and activities related to lunar science. UANews produced a comprehensive suite of articles detailing the LPL-UArizona-Apollo connections.

Thanks to the generosity of the late Shirley Curson, LPL has been able to fund summer travel for students for the last few years. However, the number of excellent applications for that award made it clear that there is a real need for additional funding to help LPL students and staff trying to explore new avenues of research and develop new skills. Dan Cavanagh, chair of LPL’s External Advisory Board, has provided additional support for the last several years, but now the entire Advisory Board has made a commitment to fund career-development travel for both students and staff. We have made a call for proposals to students and staff and anticipate bringing you the experiences of our grant awardees in the Fall 2019 newsletter. If you’re not on the Advisory Board, but would like to contribute to this fund, please do—just make a donation to LPL, and include a note indicating the purpose as "career development travel."

Singleton Thibodeaux-Yost, Science Operations Engineer with HiRISE, was selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) as an advocate in the Voices for Science program. Singleton was selected from a highly competitive applicant pool for her strong communication skills and enthusiasm for communicating the importance of Earth and Space Science to lawmakers, the press, and the public. As part of the Voices for Science class of 2019, Singleton had the opportunity to attend an interactive two-day workshop in Washington, D.C., which focused on building skills and toolkits for communication and policy development. The Voices for Science program provides for additional networking and collaboration opportunities with this year's other 34 program participants as well as members of the 2018 Voices for Science cohort. The Voices for Science program will provide funding for travel and registration to the Fall 2019 AGU Meeting, to be held in San Francisco, December 9-13.

The 2019 Voices for Science cohort includes 5 participants from the University of Arizona (UA). The UA group plans to develop a “Science & Policy Cafe” on campus and to host monthly luncheons to discuss topics like current political trends and how they relate to science funding and how science is applied to decision-making and governing. Singleton says, "We will provide resources to stay engaged, and tips and training on how to build relationships with legislators. We will also be inviting guest speakers who have dealt with the application of science to policy in the real world."

Congratulations to Molly Simon and Joshua Lothringer, LPL's newest alumni!

On May 7, Molly defended her dissertation, Part I: How Did We Get Here? College Students' Preinstructional Ideas on the Topic of Planet Formation, and the Development of the Planet Formation Concept Inventory; Part II: Evidence for Magnetically Driven Protoplanetary Disk Winds. Molly's advisor was Professor Chris Impey. She is set to begin a position as Education Postdoctoral Fellow with Zooniverse at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

Joshua defended his dissertation, Characterizing the Atmospheres of Exoplanet Populations: From Sub-Jovian to Ultra-Hot Jupiter Exoplanets, on May 31. In August, Joshua will begin a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Joshua was the recipient of the 2019 Theoretical Astrophysics Program (TAP) Graduate Student Research Prize. He presented his prize talk, Extremely Irradiated Hot Jupiters: Non-Oxide Inversions, H- Opacity, and Thermal Dissociation of Molecules, on April 1. Professor Travis Barman served as Joshua's advisor.

Dr. Steve Kortenkamp, LPL Associate Professor of Practice, is combining the capabilities of 3D printers with high-resolution spacecraft data (including those from LPL’s HiRISE instrument orbiting Mars) to produce tactile models of planetary terrain. The effort is part of an NSF-funded research project being carried out with his colleagues Drs. Sunggye Hong and Irene Topor in UA’s College of Education. Their group is designing and teaching a planetary science course for young students who are blind or visually impaired, with the aim of identifying ways to increase the representation of these students in STEM fields.

Kortenkamp is developing techniques that begin with software processing of spacecraft data; 3D printing of prototype models is added, culminating with a method of molding and casting duplicates of the models for each of his students. His work with the blind and visually impaired was featured at a Science City booth during the Tucson Festival of Books in March.

During the first year, Dr. Kortenkamp’s students are focusing on impact craters as a tool for studying planetary characteristics. They begin their studies locally by exploring 3D models of Arizona’s Meteor Crater. Then they reach out to the Moon by studying Tycho, Orientale Basin, and the near-side/far-side surface dichotomy. The class culminates on Mars with terrain that reveals evidence of water, such as craters in Athabasca Valles as well as Gusev and Gale craters. In subsequent years, Kortenkamp’s class will include 3D models of volcanoes, canyons, dune fields, asteroids, and cometary nuclei.

Dr. Kortenkamp (right) with his 3D models at Science City. The visitor is using her fingers to read the Braille label on a model of the Moon’s Tycho Crater.

Cast of a 3D-printed model of Gale Crater on Mars. Gale’s central mountain complex is currently being explored by NASA’s Curiosity rover. (Model includes Braille label. Standard Sharpie marker shown for scale.)

Dr. Michael Sori was presented with the Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award at the 2019 Awards of Distinction Luncheon and Ceremony, on April 1st.

After receiving his Ph.D. in Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Michael Sori joined the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Sciences Laboratory in 2014 to pursue postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Christopher Hamilton and Dr. Shane Byrne. Dr. Sori’s research spans a variety of topics in planetary geophysics, including the origin and evolution of ices and what they tell us about the climates and orbital histories of planets, and how volcanism helps to shape planetary surfaces. Using remote sensing data from spacecraft to inform his geophysical models, he has contributed greatly to the study of the Moon, Mars, Ceres, and Uranian satellites.

Dr. Sori has made outstanding contributions to University of Arizona’s research, outreach, and teaching missions. Since beginning his tenure as a postdoctoral scholar, he has obtained his own funding through NASA and published 14 peer-reviewed articles in high-profile journals such as Nature and Science. These publications illustrate the breadth of his technical ability and understanding of fundamental scientific problems. His discoveries have caught the public’s eye, with one being among the University’s highest profile news stories in 2018. His classroom teaching and mentoring have also earned him the reputation of being a “natural educator.” The University of Arizona is privileged to serve as the postdoctoral home for Michael Sori who is, in the words of his nominators, “a talented and reliable collaborator, an insightful scientist, a great mentor, and a respected role model within our department and within the broader Planetary Sciences community.”