Nathalia Vega Santiago is the recipient of a University Fellows Award, a prestigious fellowship offered only to the University of Arizona's highest-ranked incoming graduate students. The award provides an annual stipend, tuition scholarship, and health coverage, in addition to professional development and networking opportunities.

Nathalia completed a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences with a minor in mathematics from the University of Puerto Rico (Cayey) in June 2023. She began the PTYS doctoral program in August 2023. As an undergraduate, Nathalia was selected as a Diversity Scholar to attend the 2019 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech event. She was the co-founder and vice president of the first astronomy association at her university. And Nathalia was nominated by her peers to serve as lead scientist for the development of a preliminary design review for a lunar orbiter as part of the NASA L’Space Mission Concept Academy. Nathalia’s undergraduate research included work at the Arecibo Observatory, where she used remote sensing data to characterize near-Earth asteroids.

As a graduate student at LPL, Nathalia is pursuing research interests in astrobiology and cosmochemistry with advisor Dante Lauretta.

Melissa Kontogiannis was awarded the UArizona Richard A. Harvill Graduate Fellowship. Melissa graduated from UArizona in May 2023 with a major in chemistry and minors in planetary sciences and environmental studies. As an undergraduate, Melissa was an Arizona NASA Space Grant undergraduate research intern; she analyzed thin sections of a CM chondritic meteorite first to assist in the development of a database for cataloging and co-registering data collected from samples returned by OSIRIS-REx and additionally to understand hydrothermal processes and sequences that result in the alteration of primitive solar system bodies, including asteroid Bennu.

Melissa had the opportunity to use 3D imaging processing software as well as cutting-edge technology such as a digital microscope and SEM and an electron microprobe, FIB, and TEM. During her graduate career at LPL, Melissa will use the techniques and insight gained as an undergraduate as she pursues new research with Regents Professor Dante Lauretta on OSIRIS-REx sample science research.

Fifth-year graduate student Zoë Wilbur was recognized with two awards for her research on meteorites.

Zoë won the 2021-2022 Nininger Meteorite Award, presented by the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University, for outstanding original student research paper in meteoritical science. Zoë’s paper was titled, The Effects of Highly Reduced Magmatism Revealed through Aubrites.

Zoë was also honored with the 2023 McKay Award, presented by the Meteoritical Society. The award recognizes the best student oral presentation at the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society. The title of Zoë‘s winning presentation was, Unraveling the Volatile Story of Reduced Meteorites through Djerfisherite.

Fourth-year Ph.D. student Galen Bergsten was selected for a six-month Visiting Graduate Fellowship at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) on the campus of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He will be working with Dr. David Ciardi on a project using high-resolution imaging data to understand the effects of stellar binarity on the frequency of small planets orbiting low mass stars.

The fellowship program was established to provide doctoral students with applied research experience with leaders in research areas such as exoplanets and stellar formation. The program hosts between two and four students per year. Galen begins his fellowship in February 2024.

Ph.D. candidates Maizey Benner and Zoë Wilbur each received a 2023 Amelia Earhart Fellowship from Zonta International; they are two of only thirty scholars selected for the honor, which recognizes outstanding academic record and demonstrated initiative, ambition, and commitment to pursuing a career in space sciences.

Maizey Benner studies the origin and evolution of phosphorus-bearing materials in ordinary and carbonaceous chondrites. These chondrite groups represent two reservoirs of material from the beginning of solar system history that are mostly unaltered since their formation. Probing these pristine materials allows her to evaluate the most primitive phosphorus-bearing materials and evaluate their thermodynamic conditions of formation for refinement of the solar condensation sequence.

Maizey’s research couples experimental cosmochemistry and computational thermodynamics to better understand the origins and evolution of moderately volatile elements in the early solar system. She uses electron microscopy techniques such as electron microprobe, focused ion beam scanning-electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy to probe the chemistry and structure of materials from the micro- to nanoscale. Maizey also uses density functional theory to calculate the thermodynamic properties of materials for use in models of solar condensation. These two are linked by comparing experimental results to computational models of materials and iterating until they replicate the natural system.

Zoë Wilbur seeks to understand the history of degassing (volatile loss) among the sample suites, how eruption dynamics are preserved in lunar basalts, and to what extent volatile behavior is dependent upon a basalt’s chemical composition.

Zoë investigates the volcanic histories of Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 basalts and, in particular, an Apollo 17 basalt that was stored frozen and has been released for study for the first time after 50 years. This frozen sample is part of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program. Zoë and her advisor (Dr. Jessica Barnes) are the first researchers to study this sample since its return from the Moon. This frozen sample offers a direct comparison to other basalts curated using traditional methods at room temperature and gives the opportunity to search for volatiles (like water) using improved, 21st century techniques. To analyze this specially curated sample, Zoë is utilizing a novel combination of 2D and 3D methods, including the measurements of water, chlorine, and fluorine in lunar minerals and 3D gas bubble structures.