Image

The Planetary Science Institute has selected University of Arizona graduate student Namya Baijal and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur doctoral candidate Mishal K T as the winners of the 2025 Pierazzo International Student Travel Award. 

PSI established the award in memory of Senior Scientist Betty Pierazzo to support and encourage graduate students to build international collaborations and relationships in planetary science. Each awardee will receive a certificate and check for $2,000 at their respective conferences. 

Baijal will attend the Europlanet Science Congress – Division of Planetary Sciences Joint Meeting 2025 to be held in Helsinki, Finland from Sept. 7-12 where she will present her research titled “Three-dimensional Modelling of the Major Impact Craters on (16) Psyche.” Through her research, she works to understand how collisions have shaped the surface of asteroid (16) Psyche, a unique metal-rich asteroid in the main belt and the target of NASA’s Psyche Mission, set to arrive in 2029. Through impact modeling, she and her colleagues aim to help answer the mission’s central question: “Is Psyche the leftover core of a differentiated planetesimal, and if so, how did it form?” 

K T will attend 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference where he will present his research titled “Characterization of Hydration at Compton Belkovich Volcanic Complex on the Moon.” He seeks to understand the evolution of the lunar polar regions with respect to large scale geological processes and their influence on potential volatile deposits. 

He is currently investigating hydration signatures in the Moon’s polar regions with a particular emphasis on the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex. The results from his analysis indicate distinct differences in hydration signatures at the volcanic complex which could be linked to the distribution of evolved volcanic materials. 

Pierazzo, after whom the prize is named, was an expert in the area of impact modeling throughout the solar system, as well as an expert on the astrobiological and environmental effects of impacts on Earth and Mars. In addition to her research, she was passionate about education, teaching and public outreach, developing planetary-related classroom materials, professional development workshops for teachers, and teaching college-level classes herself. Betty believed in the strength of broad collaborations in all of her research and education activities. 

This award memorializes the scope of how she lived her life and the good she sought to bring to our profession and communities.