Fall

Reed Spurling is a senior majoring in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Math and Planetary Sciences (PTYS). Favorite PTYS courses include PTYS 411, Geology and Geophysics of the Solar System and PTYS 442, Mars. Another favorite was Regents' Professor Dante Lauretta's Spacecraft Mission Design class; for this course, students were split into three teams to design concepts for robotic solar system missions. This classwork enabled Reed to successfully apply for a summer internship at KinetX, a company that navigates the Lucy and New Horizons solar system missions for NASA.

Reed works with Drs. Virginia Gulick and Stefano Nerozzi to analyze flood channel systems on Mars. He maps the locations and sizes of impact craters in and around these channels and then runs statistics on the data to determine an approximate age for the channels. Reed also works with Aerospace professors Sergey Shkarayev and Adrien Bouskela on communication systems for dynamic soaring sailplane gliders. Engineless sailplanes should be able to fly for extended periods of time above Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan, and other planets with sufficient atmospheres, bridging gaps in observing capabilities between orbiting missions and surface missions.

Reed is the founder of the UArizona Near Space Club and is planning on a career in solar system exploration. When not in class or mapping craters, Reed likes to cook and read.

Dr. Arnaud Salvador joined LPL in August 2022 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He works with Associate Professor Tyler Robinson on the characterization of rocky exoplanets observed in direct imaging. In particular, he investigates the capabilities of future direct imaging observatories in retrieving atmospheric properties and surface conditions of distant rocky worlds. By considering the effects of observational constraints and prior information, his work aims to refine instruments design and define the most efficient observing strategies at recognizing a habitable planet.

Another aspect of his research is dedicated to the early evolution of rocky planets, focusing on the cooling, solidification, and outgassing of the magma ocean in interaction with the atmosphere, and the implications for early water ocean formation on Earth, Venus, and exoplanets.

Arnaud received his B.S. in Earth Sciences from Blaise Pascal University (Clermont-Ferrand, France) in 2013, his M.S. in Planetary Sciences from the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 2015, and his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from Paris-Saclay University in 2018. He was then a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), and Northern Arizona University in January 2021.

Arnaud enjoys playing table tennis, skateboarding, reading, being in nature, and watching the night sky.

We would like to thank all those who have donated to LPL in 2022. Thanks to everyone for supporting research, education, and outreach at LPL.

Maizey Benner

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated the potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers, early in their careers. 

Sam Myers

Assessing the Limitations of NEATM-like Models with IRTF and NEOWISE Data

Advisor: Ellen Howell

Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology

Mackenzie Mills

Effects of subsurface Fluid Reservoirs on Martian Geomorphology in Utopia Planitia

Advisor: Alfred McEwen

Samantha Moruzzi

Faulting in Pluto's Ice Shell: An Investigation of Local Strain and Stress Concentrations from Refreezing of the Ice Shell Beneath Sputnik Basin

Advisor: Jeff Andrews-Hanna

Dr. David Grinspoon (1989) was selected as a member of the 16-member NASA independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). The 9-month long study began on Oct. 24 and will focus on unclassified data. The team will release its findings in 2023.

Dr. Grinspoon is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and is a member of science teams for several interplanetary spacecraft missions including the DAVINCI mission to Venus. He is the former inaugural Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology. His research focuses on comparative planetology especially regarding climate evolution and the implications of habitability on Earth-like planets. He was awarded the Sagan Medal by the American Astronomical Society and he is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Science at the University of Colorado (Boulder) and Georgetown University.

When NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, it altered the moonlet's orbit by 33 minutes. Since the impact, DART scientists, including LPL alumni Nancy Chabot (DART Coordination Team Lead) and Andy Rivkin (Investigation Team Co-Lead), have been analyzing the impact ejecta and studying the observations to determine the object's composition and clues to its formation, in addition to how to defend Earth if an asteroid were headed for us.

DART's impact displaced over two million pounds of the moonlet into space and researchers are trying to learn just how much of the asteroid's displacement occurred as a result of the impact versus the recoil. Read more about DART and what comes next for the science team analyzing the impact and implications for planetary defense.