2012 Spring Department News

Professor Timothy D. Swindle has been named the new Director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Head of the Department of Planetary Sciences, replacing the late Michael J. Drake, who served in that role for 17 years.

Tim has been on the faculty at LPL since 1986, arriving shortly

Congratulations to students who defended in Spring 2012: Kathryn G. Gardner-Vandy, "Partial Melting on FeO-rich Asteroids: Insights to the First Stage of Planetary Differentiation" (Lauretta)

Nikole. K. Lewis, "Atmospheric Circulation of Eccentric Extrasolar Giant Planets" (Showman)

Devin Schrader, "The Formation and Alteration of the Renazzo-like Carbonaceous Chondrites" (Lauretta)

This past January, OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta announced the formal appointment of Ed Beshore as the OSIRIS-REx Deputy PI. Ed transitioned to this role from his previous position as Principal Investigator, operations manager, and lead software engineer for the Near Earth Object (NEO) survey programs of the Catalina Sky

UA Innovation Day honors Mike Drake

On Tuesday, March 6, the University of Arizona (UA) hosted its ninth annual Innovation Day at the UA. The event, attended by over 300 people, celebrated the UA's success in technology development and innovation by highlighting the research achievements of students, staff, and faculty

LPL Fieldtrip Spring 2012 by Assistant Professor Shane Byrne

Enthusiasm has been building for some time for us to return to Death Valley and this semester we made the long drive up there to see one of the most geologically diverse places in the world. It's rare that you can

On March 10 and 11, the UA campus hosted the Tucson Festival of Books. The Festival was bigger than ever and LPL had a great presence this year.

The Kuiper Space Sciences lecture hall hosted several talks, including two "Mars 101" lectures by HiRISE EPO Manager Ari Spinoza.

OSIRIS-REx principal

The OSIRIS-REx mission, selected as the third NASA New Frontiers mission in May 2011, launched its hub website. Visit http://osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu.

This site provides basic information about the mission and links to resources within NASA, to partners and to other sites of interest. This site is the hub for our

The media is buzzing about Planetary Resources and its recently announced plan to mine asteroids. LPL is proud to claim three alumni and an emeritus professor on the Planetary Resources team:

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, graduated from the University of Arizona in 1997 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering; he completed

Congratulations to Kari Figueroa, recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Staff Award, and kudos to Audrie Fennema, Senior Staff Technician with HiRISE, who was awarded honorable mention for the Outstanding Staff Award.

Kari Figueroa is an Associate Accountant in the LPL Business Office, providing support for all aspects of the purchasing

Professor Rick Greenberg was recently contacted by a high school student regarding an excerpt from the 2009 AP English Language and Composition Exam. It turns out that a piece on planetary protection (Greenberg, Richard, and B. Randall Tufts. "Infecting Other Worlds" American Scientist Jul.-Aug. 2001. 24 Feb. 2008) was used