2026 Andersson Award to Cole Meyer
Cole Meyer is the recipient of the 2026 Leif Erland Andersson Award for Service and Outreach.
Cole Meyer is a second-year student working with Professor Walt Harris. He is busy in the research community as an active member of the Optical and Space Flight Instrumentation Development (OSFID) group and lead graduate student on the Spatial Heterodyne Interferometric Molecular Cloud Observer sounding rocket. He also spearheads several instrument development efforts in the OSFID group. Cole is also a National Science Foundation Research Fellow and Arizona/NASA Space Grant Fellow.
Cole has devoted significant time to improving access to STEM education and serving the broader community. He has advised research projects for four undergraduate students, three of which are Arizona NASA Space Grant students and one high school student through STAR Lab. He is also a graduate instructor for University of Arizona Sky School, contributing to a specialized astronomy curriculum for a school visit in April 2026.
Cole has lead K-12 curriculum development efforts aimed at improving access to high quality STEM education for underrepresented and underprivileged students. With seed grant money from Arizona Astrobiology Center, Cole is a co-investigator for the Other Worlds program, which develops and delivers new astrobiology curricula to high school students at the Pima County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC). With his collaborators, Cole expanded this program to 12 graduate developers and multiple community partners, including UA Sky School and Pima County JDC CAPE School. Plans for the program include developing lesson plans (“Detecting life from afar” and “Life on Earth & Beyond: Foldscope Exploration of Microscopic Life”) and comic books (Wow! I’m a Scientist! Astrobiology Comic Book). This curriculum is planned to be delivered in June 2026 to the JDC Cape School.
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. Support the Andersson Award with a gift.