Fall

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.

Alumnus John Moores (2008) was named Science Advisor to the President of Canada. He is the York Research Chair in Space Exploration at York University and is the Director of Technologies for Exo-Planetary Science with Canada's Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program. Dr. Moores previously held positions as Associate Dean of Research and Graduate studies for the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University.

Dr. Moores is a Participating Scientist on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission and contributed to the 2005 Cassini Huygens probe to Titan and to the Phoenix mission to Mars.

By Mikayla Mace Kelley, University Communications - October 19, 2022

The University of Arizona's Daniella "Dani" DellaGiustina shot for the stars and has already landed among them. Today, the planetary scientist was named one of Popular Science's Brilliant 10 – an annual list of early-career scientists and engineers who are developing innovative approaches to problems across a range of disciplines.

DellaGiustina is an assistant professor of planetary sciences in the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and deputy principal investigator of NASA's LPL-led OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. She is also principal investigator of the extended OSIRIS-REx mission, dubbed OSIRIS-APEX, which will visit the near-Earth asteroid Apophis.

DellaGiustina was chosen from hundreds of researchers across a variety of institutions.

Popular Science says its list aims to recognize the hard work, creativity and potential of those who are shaking up old modes of thinking, defining new disciplines and laying the groundwork for tomorrow's most groundbreaking research.

"For the Brilliant 10, we look for innovative thinkers and leaders whose work stands to reshape our understanding of our world. The insights Daniella's work will glean from asteroids will do just that," said Popular Science Editor-in-Chief Corinne Iozzio. "When Apophis makes its loop around Earth in 2029, the work she's prepping now will ensure we learn everything we can about our past, present and future as we possibly can."

"Dr. DellaGiustina is a brilliant planetary scientist whose work on the OSIRIS-REx and OSIRIS-APEX missions is expanding our knowledge of the makeup of asteroids and is laying the foundation for groundbreaking discoveries about the evolution of our solar system," said Carmala Garzione, dean of the College of Science. "Her journey through her education and career is inspirational and will support the next generation of female and Latina scientists. We are proud to have Dr. DellaGiustina representing our science community in Southern Arizona."

DellaGiustina is interested in water distribution throughout the solar system and how scientists can establish water's presence on different planetary bodies.

"Over the last year, I've been enamored with the scientific questions to establish how water got to the early Earth billions of years ago," DellaGiustina said. "I'm also interested in understanding the interiors of asteroids, moons and planets, because it's so difficult to do. We only have indirect measurements and techniques at our disposal, so we must pair those measurements with good assumptions to fully interpret the data. I enjoy that challenge."

DellaGiustina develops and deploys remote-sensing instruments to learn more about the surface and interior structure of small airless worlds, including asteroids and the moons of the outer solar system, where liquid oceans could be lurking beneath ice sheets.

She tests her technology in places like Greenland, which has a landscape similar to the planetary bodies she studies. Over the summer, she spent several weeks testing instruments at a lake beneath a glacier in northwest Greenland, where half a mile of ice overlays about 30 feet of salty water, providing a similar landscape to what is expected on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Following the water has also taken her to asteroid Bennu, from which the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample in 2020 that will be returned to Earth in 2023. Bennu contained evidence of water in its past, and so drew scientific attention. After the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft jettisons its sample return capsule over the Utah desert in September 2023, the spacecraft will fly on to study Apophis, thanks to a $200 million mission extension by NASA that DellaGiustina will lead. The goal of the OSIRIS-APEX extended mission is to understand what lies just beneath the surface of asteroid Apophis. Researchers also want to understand how Apophis will be physically affected by the gravitational pull of Earth when the asteroid make a close approach to the planet in 2029.

DellaGiustina, 36, has rocketed from student to principal investigator in a short period of time. She said that what motivates her is her love of discovery.

"I get obsessed with scientific questions and like treating them like giant puzzles," DellaGiustina said. "I also just love being the first person to see the first image of a planetary surface, or the first to discover what is at the base of an ice sheet. I'm hooked on that feeling."

DellaGiustina earned a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Arizona in 2008. She got her master's in computational physics from the University of Alaska in 2011 and then returned to UArizona, where she completed a doctorate in geosciences in 2021.

Her career began to develop at LPL when she was an undergraduate in the Arizona Space Grant program, studying meteorites with Professor Dante Lauretta, who would become principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx.

Her work led to a student experiment on the Phase A Discovery OSIRIS Mission, which was a precursor to OSIRIS-REx that ultimately was not selected by NASA for spaceflight but paved the way for the OSIRIS-REx mission. She developed an experiment to measure the ability of asteroids to provide radiation shielding for future manned missions to Mars.

In graduate school, DellaGiustina combined remote observations of Earth's ice sheets with modeling techniques to understand how ice flow will respond to a changing climate. She now uses her knowledge of Earth's permanently frozen regions to perform field studies in Earth landscapes similar to icy bodies in the solar system.

In 2012, DellaGiustina became a research scientist in the UArizona Department of Physics, and she transitioned back to planetary sciences in early 2014. She led the OSIRIS-REx image processing team from 2015 to 2021 before becoming deputy principal investigator of the mission in 2021. In addition to her other roles, she teaches a course about asteroids and comets to undergraduate and graduate students.

"Being recognized as one of the Brilliant 10 is really rewarding because I am a Latina who has not taken a traditional path through my career," DellaGiustina said.

She put the pursuit of her doctoral degree on the backburner while she worked for a while to figure out exactly what she wanted to study — eventually settling on seismology. She finished her doctorate while working full time as a scientist, graduating the same semester she wrote the proposal that would lead to her appointment as the OSIRIS-APEX principal investigator. At the same time, she was growing a spaceflight seismometer instrument program at UArizona, called the Seismometer to Investigate Ice and Ocean Structure. The program develops instruments needed to support missions to icy bodies in the outer solar system that could provide a sneak peek into the interiors of other worlds.

"It's been a little bit of a gamble to do things in the way I have," DellaGiustina said, "so it's nice to get external recognition that the work I'm doing is impactful."