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Where
did you grow up?
I grew up in an Army family and moved around the US a lot. I graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD
How
did you get interested in space exploration?
When I was a junior in high school, I participated in a Space Club Scholar summer internship at NASA Goddard with Dr. Herb Frey, looking at MOLA topography of Mars and identifying new impact basins. I thought it was so cool that you could be among the first to see data from another planet, and because you have that new data, that you could make such fundamental discoveries and further the science.
What's
your educational background?
I graduated from MIT in 2004 with a SB in Geosciences and a minor in Literature. I received my SM from Brown University in 2006 in Planetary Geology and am working toward my PhD there.
What
are your hobbies?
I enjoy cooking (especially baking), playing squash, swimming, and caring for my terrarium while planning an enormous garden I will plant when I have the space.
What's
your job on CRISM?
I help analyze the data for mineral signatures. I’m broadly interested in sulfate distributions around Mars and their implications for past Martian climate. I am currently focusing on the Valles Marineris region, a huge tectonic rift near the equator of Mars. There are large sulfate-rich layered deposits in Valles Marineris of unknown origin; they could be volcanic, lacustrine, or aeolian. Understanding the type and distribution of sulfates within these layered deposits could help us decipher how the deposits formed and how they fit into the geologic history of Valles Marineris. I also pick potential targets for CRISM to observe, by looking at previous Martian data.
What
excites you about exploring Mars?
Mars is both very Earth-like (landscape carved by wind, water, ice and volcanism) and very different (liquid water would sublimate on Mars; volcanoes, craters and outflow channels are many times larger than on Earth). Looking at data from Mars requires an intellectual balance: you want to compare Mars to familiar Earth features and processes but also want to be open to totally new processes that are uniquely Martian!
What
advice would you give to someone like you who wants to get involved in space exploration?
My advice would be summer internships at NASA, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, or other agencies that can give you a taste of what is it like to be a scientist and can introduce you to the many different fields of space exploration. |
