This year, LPL presented two outstanding staff awards: Amy Brenton (administrative staff) and Chris Schaller (science/engineering staff).

Amy Brenton serves as academic advisor for the PTYS graduate program and for the undergraduate minor programs in Planetary Sciences and Astrobiology. She is responsible for helping our students navigate policies and procedures and helping them to achieve their academic goals. Amy is also dedicated to making the department a more welcoming and inclusive place for all students; her door (real or virtual) is always open, and she is known to invite students to visit for conversation and homemade cookies with the goal of building better and more open relationships with our students.

To better support our students, she has developed relationships with other campus advisors as well as staff at the Graduate College and the Graduate and Professional Student Center and works closely with the advising community on campus, including the University Professional Advising Council (UPAC). In addition to attending regular UPAC meetings, Amy makes a point of expanding her knowledge and experience by participating in professional development opportunities such as workshops geared toward improving student services and communication: e.g., trainings on having difficult conversations, how to address mental and emotional concerns, and regularly using her lunch hour to participate in advisor training sessions. She also volunteers to represent the department at university events like the Meet Your Major Fair—PTYS had previously never been represented at these types of events.

Her dedication to advising and professional development was recognized in 2019, when she was named an outstanding advisor by the UArizona Advising Resource Center (ARC). Amy was recognized as one of the “most professionally active and engaging advisors on campus” and cited for her commitment to advising and professional growth, including her participation in campus advising seminars and advising learning communities on campus.  She received a UPAC travel grant (supplemented by a College of Science Staff Advisory Committee professional development grant) in support of travel to the annual National Academic Advising Association conference, where she had the opportunity to learn more about current advising topics such as recognizing the unique needs of individual students in dealing with mental health, advocacy, and communication.

In addition to excelling at these fundamental advising roles, Amy goes "above and beyond" to serve the LPL community by supporting department functions such as coordinating the LPL social media posts, which includes regular meetings with UA Communications and other departments and groups within LPL to learn about the networking requirements; serving as LPL’s CoSSAC representative since 2015 (she was committee chairperson for 2018-2019); helping to produce the semesterly print newsletters; and participating in outreach events such as Summer Science Saturday. To summarize, Amy pitches in to assist with any and all tasks in the department, including co-hosting the LPL holiday party in recent years.

Amy is an outstanding member of the LPL staff for the dedication and excellence she demonstrates in all her efforts on behalf of LPL.

As lead Spacecraft Operations Software Engineer for the HiRISE and CaSSIS instruments, Chris Schaller is primarily responsible for developing and maintaining the planning and targeting software for the two instruments. His technical expertise and careful implementation are critical to project success. For HiRISE in particular, Chris has been responsible for software development and technical understanding of critical areas, including the complicated matter of precise timing of HiRISE instrument operation steps, which is key to targeting accuracy and analysis of instrument anomalies. Similarly, Chris has developed the detailed procedure needed to swap sides of the block-redundant electronics.

Chris has been described as a conscientious and inclusive developer who regularly solicits feedback from the team members using his software. Based on that feedback, Chris works to improve the usability of his software, proactively adding new features that aid the operations teams in streamlining their processes. The results of this work often reduce the time required to complete daily missing planning tasks by hours. And while his work saves time for others, it also means that Chris works holidays and weekends so that he is available to solve problems in real time; this is especially true of his work with CaSSIS, for which Chris has lead the development of Plan-C and adaptation of HiPlan for the TGO spacecraft and CaSSIS. This has been a continuing effort due to instrument anomalies and changing spacecraft constraints. CaSSIS has now acquired thousands of images of Mars via Plan-C. Chris has been recognized for the excellent work he has done to understand and respond to the needs of both the HiRISE and CaSSIS science teams.

In addition to the responsibilities of his critical role with two spacecraft instruments, Chris has recently played major roles in improving communication within LPL and advancing the interests of LPL across campus. Within LPL, he has facilitated the exchange of expertise across different research groups, culminating in the first "town hall" for technical staff, which helped to inform staff about development proposal and how technical staff could contribute expertise to current and future projects. He has represented LPL at meetings for the proposed Advanced Research Building, advocating for infrastructure to support future LPL instrumentation and science. He has also represented LPL at meetings related to the UArizona Space Institute (UASI) and represents the science/engeineering staff at LPL faculty meetings.

This award recognizes not only Chris' consistent outstanding work with HiRISE and CaSSIS, but also his recent advocacy, leadership, and engagement with staff issues, which demonstrates a long-standing and deep commitment to LPL.