Spring

David Grinspoon Elected Lifetime AAAS Fellow

LPL alumnus David Grinspoon (1989) was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow in astronomy for 2021. He was recognized as a AAAS Fellow for his distinguished research comparative terrestrial atmospheres with a particular focus on Venus, and for prolific public science communication via books, articles, lectures, and other media. 

Dr. Grinspoon is a Senior Scientist with the Planetary Science Institute. He has served on the science teams of several spacecraft missions and has published numerous papers on the evolution of the atmospheres, planets and potential biology of Earthlike planets. David has written and edited six books, including Lonely Planets the Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, which won a PEN Literary award for nonfiction, and Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future, named a Best Science Book of 2016 by NPR’s Science Friday. His articles have been published in prestigious journals and magazines; his Cosmic Relief column appears regularly in Sky & Telescope Magazine

In 2013, Dr. Grinspoon was appointed as the inaugural Chair of Astrobiology at the U.S. Library of Congress where he studied the human impact on Earth systems and organized a public symposium on the Longevity of Human Civilization. Grinspoon has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at four universities and online, given dozens of public lectures about climate change in the Solar System, and collaborated with numerous scholars from the humanities on the ethical, spiritual and political dimensions of space exploration. He has appeared widely on radio and television, including as a frequent guest-host of StarTalk Radio. The American Astronomical Society awarded him the Carl Sagan Medal for Public Communication of Planetary Science. Asteroid 22410 Grinspoon, a main-belt asteroid, is named after him. 

Kathryn Volk Receives Vera Rubin Early Career Prize

Dr. Kathryn (Kat) Volk, LPL Associate Staff Scientist, is the recipient of the 2022 Vera Rubin Early Career Prize. The Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) of the American Astronomical Society awards the prize annually to recognize an early career dynamicist who demonstrates excellence in scientific research in dynamical astronomy, has had impact and influence on the field, and shows a promise of continued excellence as demonstrated by past practice in research, teaching, and the advancement and support of the field of dynamical astronomy.

Kat is a 2013 alumna of LPL, completing her Ph.D. under the direction of Regents Professor Renu Malhotra. She uses theory, numerics, and observations in her research, which spans both Solar System and exoplanetary science.

Dr. Volk has made fundamental contributions to the observational characterization of small-body populations through her core role in the Outer Solar System Origins Survey and her work to apply her extensive numerical investigations to theoretical models of the early Solar System. Her research has been influential in quantifying the rates at which Jupiter-family comets are generated from their hypothesized source in the scattered disk beyond Neptune and in characterizing the underlying resonant trans-Neptunian object populations as observational anchors for theories of the early Solar System.

Dr. Volk has also significantly shaped the field of exoplanetary science with her influential proposal that most planetary systems begin in compact configurations and her fundamental contributions to our understanding of the long-term dynamical stability of exoplanetary systems. Kat's research demonstrates that the future lifetimes of mature exoplanet systems are set by slow chaotic diffusion induced by the overlap of secular (rather than mean-motion) resonances.

Dr. Volk will give the prize lecture at the 54th annual DDA meeting in the spring of 2023.

Recent PTYS Graduates

Congratulations to Tracy Esman, Indujaa Ganesh, John Noonan, and Sarah Sutton, LPL's newest alumni!

May 2, 2022
Tracy Esman 
 
Magnetic Field Fluctuations from the Solar Wind to the Surface of Mars
New position: Postdoc, Goddard Space Flight Center
 

 

 


April 22, 2022

Indujaa Ganesh
 
Investigating Late-stage Explosive Eruptions on the Volcanic Rises of Mars and Venus
New position: Postdoc, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
 

January 7, 2022
John Noonan
 
The Comet Cipher: Understanding the Ultraviolet Emissions of Cometary Comae

New position: Postdoc, Auburn University


April 18, 2022

Sarah Sutton
 
Fissure-fed Volcanism on Mars and Earth
Continuing her work as a Photogrammetry & Image Processing Scientist with HiRISE

Joana Voigt Wins Kuiper Award

Joana Voigt is the recipient of the LPL Kuiper Memorial Award and College of Science Excellence in Scholarship Award for LPL for 2022. Joana is a fourth-year student whose research focuses on comparisons between volcanic processes on Earth and Mars.

Joana has an impressive publication record that includes 12 peer-reviewed articles, including 4 first-author and 1 co-first author papers. Three first-author articles from 2021 summarized her work studying the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption in Iceland, providing insight into: (1) geomorphological mapping of the lava flow-field to understand its lava emplacement dynamics during fissure-fed eruption; (2) statistical characterization of lava surface roughness to inform mapping studies of lava flow-field using remote sensing data (e.g., topography and radar); and (3) determination of the relationship between lava flow facies and time average effusion rates to determine how eruption rates influence the products of large fissure-fed eruptions. Joana has also published work related to the characterization of the InSight landing site, cryovolcanism on Europa, and impact melts on the Moon.

In 2021, Joana received the Amelia Earhart Fellowship to support her field work, and a NASA FINESST to complete a study related to the four-dimensional reconstruction of lava flow emplacement within Elysium Planitia using geological mapping and SHARAD radar analysis. She has also served on two NASA panels as an executive secretary and established a visiting studentship at Caltech with Professor Bethany Ehlmann.

Joana is the Deputy Principal Investigator of Associate Professor Christopher Hamilton’s RAVEN: Rover–Aerial Vehicle Exploration Network project to field test rovers and drones in Iceland to inform the next generation of Mars Science Helicopter mission. She also works with Hamilton, who serves as her dissertation advisor, on a JPL Strategic University Partnership Program to test science operational scenarios for the exploration of lunar lava tubes, in support of JPL’s Discovery Mission concept Moon Diver. Joana is also part of a newly selected proposal to investigate volcanic outgassing from flood lava eruptions on Mars and their effects on climate.

Joana plans to graduate in December 2022.

The citation for the Kuiper Award reads: "This award is presented to students of the planetary sciences who best exemplify, through the high quality of their researches and the excellence of their scholastic achievements, the goals and standards established and maintained by Gerard P. Kuiper, founder of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona."  To contribute to the Kuiper Memorial Award, visit https://give.uafoundation.org/science-lpl

2022 Leif Anderson Award to Amanda Stadermann

Amanda Stadermann is the recipient of the 2022 LPL Leif Andersson Award for Service and Outreach and the College of Science Excellence in Service Award for LPL.

Amanda is a Ph.D. candidate at LPL. Her thesis primarily focuses on rocks returned from the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s. By studying these rocks with optical and electron microscopy techniques, she learns about the petrology and geochemistry of these rocks in effort to better understand their histories and formations, and gain insight into resolving remaining questions about the geologic history of the Moon.

Throughout her career as a graduate student, Amanda has been passionate about service to her fellow students, her professional colleagues, and the local community.

In her role as Graduate Representative to the Faculty, Amanda attends faculty meetings to represent student concerns and present data and other relevant information as needed. As Grad Rep, Amanda also welcomes prospective students with an orientation to LPL and the academic program, as well as the campus and life in Tucson.

Amanda has been active in her support of special programs and events like The Art of Planetary Science (2018-2020). She has been a regular volunteer for LPL outreach events such as Summer Science Saturday. In 2019, Amanda was invited to give a talk at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and also made presentations at UArizona Special Collections (Moon) as well as at Tucson's Coronado K-8 School (Parker Solar Probe: Exploring the Sun).

Amanda has served the wider planetary science community in peer review roles and as an executive secretary for NASA proposal review panels (ROSES). She is the communications chair for NextGen, a community group of early career researchers who have a passion and vision for lunar science and exploration. With NextGen, Amanda maintains and revises the community web site, distributes information and announcements, and coordinates in-person and virtual meet-ups. She also helped to organize a community panel discussion on ethical lunar exploration. Amanda has been invited to give several oral presentations on NextGen initiatives. Amanda's work with NextGen helps to create a better sense of community among early career lunar scientists, engineers, and explorers.

The Leif Andersson Service Award is a great honor for Amanda, who finds that service and community-building within her department, as well as the planetary science community, are key to being a successful scientist. Throughout her graduate career, she has advocated for and worked to promote early career scientists and engineers in the lunar community. She also has worked hard to create and foster a community among graduate students in her department, an effort that was particularly necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic. With this award, Amanda hopes that others will also recognize the importance of service and community-building in a scientific career, and also work to foster a caring and supportive environment for all who take part in planetary science.


The LPL Andersson Award for Service and Outreach is awarded annually to a PTYS graduate student in recognition for attention to broader impacts and involvement in activities outside of academic responsibilities that benefit the department, university, and the larger community. The award is named for Dr. Leif Andersson, a scientist who worked at LPL in the 1970s.

Pascucci Promoted to Full Professor

 Dr. Ilaria Pascucci has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Pascucci's research is directed towards understanding how planets form and evolve; she seeks to understand if planetary systems like our own Solar System are common. She carries out observations aimed at characterizing the physical and chemical evolution of gaseous dust disks around young stars, the birth sites of planets. In addition, she uses exoplanet surveys to re-construct the intrinsic frequency of planets around mature stars. By linking the birth sites of planets to the exoplanet populations, the research contributes to building a comprehensive and predictive planet formation theory, a necessary step in identifying which nearby stars most likely host a habitable planet like Earth.

Dr. Pascucci earned her Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Heidelberg) in 2004 and has been with LPL since 2011; she currently serves as Associate Department Head.

 

Ranjan and Robinson Join LPL Faculty

LPL will welcome two new faculty members for fall 2022: Dr. Sukrit Ranjan and Dr. Tyler Robinson.


Dr. Ranjan's work is focused on the origin of life on Earth, the search for life on other worlds, and the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. He applies photochemistry to questions related to the origin of life on Earth and the search for life on other worlds. Sukrit works to constrain the palette of environmental conditions from which life arose on Earth to constrain and guide experimental studies of the origin of life. To search for life elsewhere, he works to determine observational tests by which life on other worlds may be remotely discriminated. In collaboration with experimental colleagues, Sukrit seeks to obtain the critical measurements of fundamental photochemical parameters required to build robust models in support of both goals.

Sukrit completed his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Harvard University, where he was the first student to earn a certificate in Origin of Life studies. Sukrit completed his undergraduate work at MIT, majoring in physics and minoring in astronomy and history. In addition to research, Dr. Ranjan values outreach and education.


Dr. Robinson is an alumnus of the University of Arizona, earning a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics in 2006. He completed a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrobiology from the University of Washington in 2012. Ty held prestigious postdoctoral positions as a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center and as a Sagan Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and he is a Cottrell Scholar (Research Corporation for Science and Advancement).

Ty uses sophisticated radiative transfer and climate tools to study the atmospheres of Solar System worlds, exoplanets, and brown dwarfs. He also develops instrument models for exoplanet direct imaging. He combines these areas of expertise in his work on the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) Science and Technology Definition Team, and in his contributions to the LUVOIRWFIRST/Rendezvous, and Origins Space Telescope mission concept studies. He has had great success in building diverse research groups.

2022 Galileo Circle Scholarships

Congratulations to LPL's 2022 Galileo Circle Scholarship recipients: Rachel Fernandes, Nathan Hadland, Kiana McFadden, Allison McGraw, Laura Seifert, Emileigh Shoemaker, and Joana Voigt. 

Galileo Circle Scholarships are awarded to the University of Arizona's finest science students and represent the tremendous breadth of research interests in the University of Arizona College of Science. Galileo Circle Scholarships are supported through the generous donations of Galileo Circle members. Galileo Circle Scholars receive $1,000 each and the opportunity to introduce themselves and their research to the Galileo Circle patrons.

Rachel Fernandes
(Advisor: Ilaria Pascucci)

Seeking to expand on our understanding of the primordial short-period population by detecting and measuring the occurrence rates of planets in young (<1 Gyr) stellar clusters with the Transiting Exoplanet Sky Survey.

Nathan Hadland
(Advisors: Solange Duhamel and Christopher Hamilton)

Studies planetary analogs in Iceland and elsewhere to evaluate the nature of life and their resulting biosignatures in extreme environments that have similar characteristics as Mars.

Kiana McFadden
(Advisors: Lynn Carter and Ellen Howell)

Studies asteroids and other small bodies using radar and thermal data.

Allison McGraw
(Advisor: Vishnu Reddy)

Researching the Gefion asteroid family.

Laura Seifert
(Advisor: Tom Zega)
Analyzes circumstellar grains preserved inside primitive meteorites using transmission electron microscopy.
Emileigh Shoemaker
(Advisor: Lynn Carter)

Studies volcanism and ice deposits using ground penetrating radar.

Joana Voigt
(Advisor: Christopher Hamilton)
Seeks a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between eruption dynamics and the final lava morphologies by using a combination of remote sensing techniques and instruments, unmanned aircraft systems, and field observations.