Department News

In 1998, the University of Arizona’s Teaching Teams Program was established to create dynamic learning environments for students, teaching assistants, as well as instructors and professors to collaborate in the education of undergraduates. The Teaching Teams Program began promoting peer learning assistants for large General Education science classes, originally in the area of planetary science and astronomy. Our program quickly expanded to become university-wide, including over 200 learning assistants per semester at its peak. Undergraduate students who enrolled in our Teaching Team classes were recruited to take on added responsibility as so-called “preceptors.” Preceptors serve as peer guides, mentors, tutors, and teachers for their fellow classmates.

Dr. Steve Kortenkamp uses preceptors every semester for his planetary science General Education courses. In the Fall 2021 semester, Steve had the help of four preceptors for his PTYS/ASTR 206 course. These preceptors assisted with set-up and management of LPL’s telescopes for a smartphone astrophotography project, held office hours to help students with writing essays, and worked as peer-graders on the submitted essays.

As other departments began following the Teaching Teams model, our curriculum began evolving away from a preceptor training program and into professional development for both preceptors and non-preceptors. Strengthening of interpersonal skills, professional online social media practices, and personal branding preparation for undergraduates is now the core of what Teaching Teams offers to our students.

Teaching Teams workshops provide a format that enables students to experiment with various teaching techniques and communication and internet skills, and outfits them with important interpersonal competencies for a wide variety of careers. Looking towards a globally changing learning and working environment, the overarching goal of the Teaching Teams Program is to instill leadership, teaching, and interpersonal skills as well as personal development for our students to build upon. Using our workshops to reach their desired goals, (i.e., future internships, jobs, graduate schools, etc.), our students will have the knowledge and skills to successfully compete in a changing 21st century world job market.

Today, the Teaching Teams program offers 12 units of course work, enough opportunities to support an undergraduate certificate. The Teaching Teams Program continues to encourage professors to utilize preceptors in conjunction with the program's PTYS 297A and PTYS 397A workshops for the benefit of students.      

 Teaching Teams preceptors helping Dr. K's class with an astrophotography project.

Professor Heather Knutson has been named the inaugural speaker for the Adam P. Showman Distinguished Visiting Lectureship. She will spend the week of April 18, 2022, at LPL, giving lectures and meeting with faculty, students, postdoctoral associates, and staff members.

Professor Knutson studies the dynamics and chemistry of extrasolar planetary atmospheres, one of the many fields in which Professor Adam Showman conducted pioneering research. Dr. Knutson led a team that confirmed the predicted eastward shift of the substellar hotspot in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 189733b, a shift that Dr. Showman and collaborators had predicted on the basis of fundamental atmospheric dynamical principles. This pioneering discovery established the field of observational exoplanet meteorology. Professor Knutson also searches for long-period companions in exoplanetary systems and conducts precision infrared photometry and time series analysis.

Professor Knutson obtained her B.S. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 2004 and her Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in 2009. She completed her thesis work, Portraits of Distant Worlds: Characterizing the Atmospheres of Extrasolar Planets, with Professor David Charbonneau. She has been with Caltech since 2011.

Catalina Sky Survey Tops off 2021 with a Rare Bright Comet Discovery

The University of Arizona has once again been recognized as one of the world's top 100 research institutions by U.S. News & World Report.

UArizona ranked No. 99 out of 1,750 higher education institutions across 90 countries in the 2022 Best Global Universities ranking. The university was No. 42 among universities in the U.S. and No. 22 among public universities.

"It is gratifying to see the University of Arizona listed alongside many of the world's premier academic research institutions," said University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins. "Our university is home to many breathtaking scientific innovations, and it is upon this foundation that our faculty members seek to make further extraordinary discoveries."

U.S. News & World Report's Best Global Universities ranks colleges and universities in 43 separate subjects – up from 38 the year before. The University of Arizona earned a spot on 32 of the subject rankings lists.

UArizona earned its top placement in the space science category, placing No. 10 overall, No. 7 in the U.S. and No. 2 among public universities – all up one spot from last year's rankings. The university earned top marks for its research reputation in space sciences, along with the number of citations and publications by UArizona researchers.

The university's overall research reputation ranked No. 46 in the U.S. and No. 93 globally.

"The resolve and innovative spirit of researchers across campus are at the heart of the university's outstanding research reputation," said Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell, senior vice president for research and innovation. "From our commitment to building resilience amid a swiftly changing climate, to our leadership of NASA's groundbreaking OSIRIS-REx mission returning an asteroid sample to Earth, to our pioneering work understanding individualized health needs through the NIH-funded All of Us Program, University of Arizona research creates real-world solutions in nearly every scientific discipline."

UArizona earned top-100 global placements for its programs in geosciences (No. 26), arts and humanities (tied for No. 42), environment/ecology (No. 42), plant/animal sciences (No. 53) and biotechnology and applied microbiology (No. 86).

The eighth annual Best Global Universities rankings are produced to provide insight into how research institutions compare throughout the world. The rankings focus specifically on schools' academic research and reputation overall. To produce the global rankings, which are based on data and metrics provided by analytics company Clarivate, U.S. News & World Report uses a methodology that focuses on 13 indicators to measure research performance.

There are 25 undergraduate students pursuing their minor program of study in Planetary Sciences. These students have varied major home departments, including Astronomy, Engineering, Chemistry, and Geosciences. We're proud to profile one of our undergraduate minor students in this semester's newsletter.

David Cantillo

Planetary science has always been appealing to me because it connects my research interests in astronomy with a more hands-on, geological perspective. When I heard that the University of Arizona was offering planetary sciences as a minor, it was an easy choice my freshman year of college.

What has been your favorite Planetary Sciences class and why? 

They've all been great, though the most influential was certainly the comets class (PTYS 4/595B, Observational Campaigns, Professor Walt Harris) that I took my first semester. I quickly learned that comets can be extremely dynamic and complex bodies, and the class was a wonderful introduction to graduate students I'm still in touch with now. The trip up to the 61" telescope on Mt. Bigelow is also something I'll always remember!

What are your future goals?

I would love to earn a doctoral degree and work in small bodies, space situational awareness, and/or astrobiology research.

Are you working on any current research projects?

Most recently, I was working on a project with Dr. Vishnu Reddy where we made a laboratory regolith mixture that matched the surface composition of the large metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. Finding Psyche's surface composition was an extremely rewarding project and I was excited to help contribute to the field with my first lead-author paper. Now, I'm working on a similar project where I'm looking at 16 Psyche in the visible range of light with groundbased telescopes at Biosphere II. From this, we hope to better constrain the nature of hydration on its surface.

Tell us about yourself.

In high school, I was really into astrophotography and would travel around Maryland to find the best spots without light pollution. This is largely what led me to study planetary sciences in the first place. Now, I've been focused on music throughout college. I've played guitar and bass in local bands for the past four years, and I'm the singer and lead songwriter for my current band, Daytrails. We played a show at this year's Art of Planetary Science and released our first single the same day.

I have my research advisor, Dr. Vishnu Reddy, to thank for helping me navigate the world of planetary science and college itself. He cares a lot about his students and I can't thank him enough for helping me get where I am today. Throughout the pandemic, he's been extremely compassionate and a great mentor.

  Sara Knutson

  Anjani Polit

Sara Knutson and Anjani Polit were each recognized by NASA for their outstanding work with the OSIRIS-REx mission.

Sara received an individual Robert H. Goddard Award for her work as Science Operations Lead Engineer at the OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center. The citation for Sara’s Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering reads, "For systems engineering excellence, teamwork, and leadership of the science implementation activities on the OSIRIS-REx mission.” 

Anjani and the OSIRIS-REx Planning and Implementation team she leads were honored with the Robert H. Goddard Award for their outstanding work in planning the science observations of Bennu. Anjani was previously awarded a Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Goddard Awards recognize exemplary achievements in spaceflight.

We would like to thank all those who have donated to LPL in 2021. Thanks to everyone for supporting research, education, and outreach at LPL.

On the first day of our trip, we travelled to Texas Canyon, where we visited the Triangle T Guest Ranch and exceptional granite outcrops with spherical weathering. Folks at the ranch kindly let our group explore the rock formations and guided us to see exceptional Native American petroglyphs. We then visited Willcox Playa and hiked to Fort Bowie to learn more about the region’s cultural history. The next day, we explored Chiricahua National Monument, including ancient volcanoes with spectacular hoodoo formations eroded into the 27-million-year-old Turkey Creek ignimbrite deposit. Our group of sixteen visited Massai Point, hiked the "Echo Canyon Trail," and climbed to the top of Sugarloaf to see the exceptional geologic history exposed within the walls of the valley.

For the final day or our trip, we crossed into Cave Creek Canyon, which is the largest and most biologically diverse canyon in the region. We then visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum and explored monogenetic volcanoes in San Bernardino Volcanic Field, which include exceptional mantle xenoliths. On the way home to Tucson, we enjoyed the final student presentations with ice cream in Tombstone. After two-years, it was great to explore the beautiful geology and cultural history of the Southwest again, and students are looking forward to exploring the Mojave Desert next semester with Professor Shane Byrne.

You can support the LPL field trip with a gift to the Wilkening-Sill endowment.

by Adam Battle

The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference (LPLC) marks the start of the academic year for many planetary scientists in the Tucson area. This year, LPLC 2021 reflected the cautious trend toward normal operations and was hosted in a hybrid format. For one full day, participants—all fully masked—gathered at the Michael J. Drake Building to spread out in the massive auditorium and watch presentations given by faculty, staff, and graduate students. The presentations were also live-streamed to a Zoom webinar for people to watch and ask questions virtually. At lunch time, in-person participants enjoyed viewing the expansive meteorite collection housed in the Drake building and the outdoor patio space.

Despite the strange conditions this year, LPLC had the same level of attendance as previous years, with over 70 people participating. Among the invited speakers was Teddy Kareta, the winner of the “Best Grad Student Presentation” in 2020, who gave a great talk entitled No Ice, Please: 46P/Wirtanen in the Near-Infrared. The winner of this year’s “Best Grad Student Presentation” award was Galen Bergsten, who will be invited to give a talk at LPLC in 2022. In addition to the invited speakers, 23 people gave presentations about their current or upcoming research. For a conference largely designed to bring the planetary science community together, LPLC met all of its goals despite the ongoing difficulties of the global pandemic. The conference concluded with LPL director Mark Marley's keynote on Modeling Atmospheres from Giant Planets to Cool Stars.