2016 Spring Department News

LPL and the city of Tucson are the subject of a new book titled Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets. The book's author is University of Arizona (UA) alumna Melissa Sevigny, who grew up in Tucson. As an undergraduate, Melissa studied

Congratulations to Peng Sun, who defended his dissertation on April 25! The research topic was titled, “Charged Particle Transport in the Turbulent Magnetic Field in Space and a Transport Model for the ENA Ribbon.” Peng's advisor was Regents' Professor Emeritus Randy Jokipii. 

Many LPL field trips could be retitled “Effects of the Farallon Plate Subduction,” and this spring’s trip to the San Bernardino Valley and Chiricahua Mountains was no exception. For three days (Feb. 26-28), LPL field trip group (PTYS 594A) explored an area shaped by the volcanic and tectonic

by Sarah Morrison

It has been a busy year for LPL Outreach, with events ranging from wowing young children with our new Pluto globe to giving popular monthly lectures at Borderlands Brewery as part of our Space Drafts Public Talk Series (in collaboration with Steward Observatory and NOAO). The Space Drafts

Congratulations to the 2016 recipients of the LPL Outstanding Staff Awards: Anjani Polit (Appointed Personnel) and Joshua Sosa (Classified Staff Excellence Award)!

Anjani Polit became Uplink Operations Lead for the HiRISE project in 2010, but had a decade of HiRISE targeting and uplink operations experience before that.

Anjani's work is

Jennifer Fernando joined LPL in November 2015 as a postdoctoral researcher working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) processing and analysis with Dr. Alfred McEwen and Dr. Shane Byrne. As a planetary geologist, her research focuses on the characterization of the martian past (e.g., volcanic, sedimentary) and

Sharon Hooven joined LPL in August 2011 as a Business Manager, Senior, for the OSIRIS-REx mission. Prior to joining LPL, she worked for the University of Arizona Department of Pathology business office; and, prior to that, "well, a long time ago," according to Sharon, she was with the marketing department

Mildred Matthews spent 26 years at LPL, beginning in 1970, working on the Space Science Series with Professor Tom Gehrels. The text below is from Rick Binzel, Professor of Planetary Sciences and Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On February 11, just four days short of her 101st