The following faculty have been notified by the University of Arizona Provost of promotions effective August 2016:
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Dr. Travis Barman, from Associate Professor to Associate Professor with tenure |
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Dr. Ilaria Pascucci, from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure |
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Dr. Tom Zega, from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure |
Congratulations to Travis, Ilaria, and Tom!
Professor Emerita Elizabeth (Pat) Roemer, passed away on April 8, 2016. Pat joined LPL in 1966, and retired in 1997. In 1972, Dr. Roemer chaired the committee tasked with organizing a department of planetary sciences for the University of Arizona. She specialized in comets and asteroids, starting at a time long before those were popular topics, and was a female professor in a male-dominated community long before that was commonplace. She was also a staunch friend and supporter of the LPL library for many years.
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Professor Renu Malhotra has garnered two high honors this spring. In January, she received a Louise Foucar Marshall Science Research Professorship at the University of Arizona. This award, from the Tucson-based Marshall Foundation, is in recognition of her outstanding work in orbital dynamics.
In April, Professor Malhotra was named a Regents’ Professor by the Arizona Board of Regents. The title of Regents’ Professor is the highest level of recognition bestowed on faculty in the Arizona state university system. It recognizes full professors whose work has garnered national and international distinction; no more than 3 percent of faculty can hold the title at any given time.
In 2015, Professor Malhotra was elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Christopher Hamilton received a 2015 NASA Fellowship for Early Career Researchers, which was established to facilitate the integration of new planetary science researchers into funding programs and advanced positions. The award included $100,000 in support of establishing "Precision Geodetic Constraints for Terrestrial Analog Studies of Planetary Surface Processes." The award was used to purchase Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) survey equipment through Trimble's University Partnership Program. The Trimble DGPS equipment was used to help support Dr. Hamilton's 2015 field campaign in Iceland (see Icelandic Analogs to Planetary Volcanism).
Professor Alfred McEwen was named the recipient of the 2015 Whipple Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The award, which recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of planetary science, will be presented at the 2015 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Past recipients of the Whipple Award (established in 1989) include Gene Shoemaker, David Stevenson, and Harry McSween.
In addition, he was named a Galileo Circle Fellow in UA's College of Science, an honor reserved for 10% of the College faculty. Professor Renu Malhotra is the only other LPL faculty member named as a Galileo Circle Fellow.
Professor McEwen earned his Ph.D. in Planetary Geology from Arizona State University in 1988. He has been with LPL since 1996. He serves as director of the Planetary Image Research Laboratory and is a member of the imaging science team of the Cassini mission to Saturn; co-investigator on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit Camera (LROC) team; and principal investigator of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Professor McEwen has advised, mentored, and supported many students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. In 2011, he received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Professor Richard Greenberg and Regents' Professor J.R. "Randy" Jokipii have announced their plans to retire in 2015.
Rick Greenberg began his career at LPL in 1986 as a Senior Research Scientist before becoming a Professor in 1990. His research has centered on investigations of the dynamical evolution of the solar system, including studies of asteroids, meteorites, planetary rings, and the formation of the planets. Rick has had a long-term research program in tidal processes and orbital resonances among natural satellites, and their implications for the history and physical character of the satellites. Recent work has included studies of the tidal evolution of extra-solar planets and the implications for planetary-system formation and planetary properties. Greenberg was a member of the Imaging Team for NASA's Galileo spacecraft mission from 1977 until 2003, where his research became focused on characterizing and interpreting Jupiter's satellite Europa. This work led to the publication of Unmasking Europa in 2008.
From 1989 until 2000, Professor Greenberg led the University of Arizona's campus-wide initiative in support of pre-college science, mathematics, and technology education as founder and director of the Science and Mathematics Education Center (SAMEC). SAMEC accomplishments included reform of the teacher-preparation program, unique new procedures for appropriate evaluation and reward for faculty efforts in education, cultivation and coordination of sponsored projects across the campus, and integration of the K-12 science and mathematics teaching communities into the education activities of the university. He also founded and directed the Image Processing for Teaching (IPT) project, and was founding CEO of the non-profit Center for Image Processing in Education, Inc., the dissemination entity for IPT, which gave students in classrooms across the nation the power to engage in substantive scientific exploration and discovery using state-of-the-art digital image processing.
Professor Greenberg has mentored many PTYS students over the years, including William Bottke (PTYS), Melissa Dykhuis (PTYS), Sarah E. Frey (Applied Math), Greg Hoppa (PTYS), Terry Hurford (PTYS), Brian Jackson (PTYS), Michael Nolan (PTYS), David O'Brien (PTYS), James Richardson (PTYS), Chris Schaller (PTYS), Joseph Spitale (PTYS), Randy Tufts (Geosciences), and Christa L. Van Laerhoven (PTYS).
Randy Jokipii has spent the majority of his professional career at LPL—over 40 years. Prior to joining LPL as a full professor in 1973, he was on the faculty at both the University of Chicago and Caltech. He is one of the world’s leading theoreticians on the study of cosmic rays in the Galaxy and solar system. He is responsible for many of the field’s current paradigms including the origin of the 22-year cycle in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays seen at Earth. Professor Jokipii has had very broad research interests at LPL including cosmic-ray astrophysics, solar, heliospheric and astrophysical plasma physics, plasma and magnetic field turbulence in astrophysical fluids, and the acceleration of charged nuclei to high energies by astrophysical shock waves. He has had formal involvement in a number of spacecraft missions, including Ulysses as an Interdisciplinary Scientist, and as a Guest Investigator for both the Advanced Composition Explorer mission and Voyager Interstellar Mission, the latter of which he remains actively involved.
In 1985, Professor Jokipii led a proposal for a legislative decision package to establish a theoretical astrophysics program (TAP) at the University of Arizona. The Arizona state legislature voted this program into existence with a line item in the state budget in June 1985. Professor Jokipii was named the founding director of TAP, and served for more than a decade in that capacity. His vision was that "a strong, coordinated theoretical astrophysics program—coupled with the existing observational program—can provide an increased intellectual basis for research in astronomy, planetary sciences, physics and indeed many other areas on campus." TAP quickly hired several new faculty (Adam Burrows, David Arnett, Ramesh Narayan, Jonathan Lunine) whose strong record of research and scholarship brought them wide recognition and honors and soon catapulted the University of Arizona into national stature in theoretical astrophysics.
Professor Jokipii is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union. He was named a University Regents' Professor in 1996 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. His former Ph.D. students include Guy Consolmagno (PTYS), Vladimir Florinski (PTYS), Chung-Ming Ko (Physics), David Kopriva (Applied Math), Vladimir Pariev (Astronomy), Chunsheng Pei (AMe), Lance Williams (PTYS), and Aramais Zakharian (PTYS).
Professor Renu Malhotra has been elected as a member of both the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
The NAS is a private, non-profit society of scholars, established in 1863. It provides objective advising on science and technology issues. Members are elected by their peers in recognition of distinguished and continuing accomplishments in original research. Approximately 500 of its members have won Nobel Prizes. LPL faculty members Randy Jokipii, Jay Melosh (Emeritus), and George Rieke are also elected members of the National Academy of Sciences.
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is one of the oldest and most prestigious academic societies in the U.S. It was established in 1780 to convene leaders from a variety of disciplines (academic, business, government) for the purpose of addressing critical challenges to society. Notable members from the discipline of science have included Percival Lowell, Albert Einstein, and Mariah Mitchell. Among the Academy Fellows, there are more than 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Professor Malhotra received her Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell. Her research focus is orbital dynamics and theoretical astrophysics. She was the awarded the Harold C. Urey Prize (AAS Division for Planetary Sciences) in 1997. Professor Malhotra joined the LPL faculty in 2000. In 2010, she was named a Galileo Circle Fellow of the University of Arizona. Professor Malhotra is Chair of the Theoretical Astrophysics Program at the University of Arizona.
More information about Professor Malhotra and her election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences is available from two UA News articles: Academy Elects UA Planetary Sciences Professor and UA Professor Elected to National Academy of Sciences. A celebration in honor of these achievements was held at LPL on April 30,
Congratulations to Professor Malhotra!
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Regents' Professor Victor Baker: 2014 Harold McMaster Visiting Scientist at Bowling Green State University and received a Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing for the journal Planetary and Space Science. |
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Senior Research Scientist Lon Hood: named in the June 3rd issue of EOS (Transactions, AGU) as a recipient of a 2013 Editors' Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for his work with Geophysical Research Letters. |
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Professor Dante Lauretta: named a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society. Fellows of the Meteoritical Society are members who have distinguished themselves in meteoritics or allied sciences.
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Associate Professor Joellen Russell: named a University of Arizona 1885 Society Distinguished Scholar for 2014. Read more about Professor Russell and her research. |
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Professor Adam Showman: 2014 Salpeter Lecturer at Cornell University. |
Professor William Hubbard was named the recipient of the Eighth Annual Professor Leon and Pauline Blitzer Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Physics and Related Sciences (PDF). Charles Blitzer presented Professor Hubbard with the award at a special afternoon program held on February 28, 2013. Professor Hubbard's award lecture was titled "Why Do We Have a Space Program?" A reception followed in the Kuiper Space Sciences atrium.
Bill Hubbard earned his B.A. from Rice University (Physics, 1962) and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (Astronomy, 1967), with a doctoral dissertation on the properties of dense stellar matter. During a postdoctoral appointment at Caltech, he found that his research had implications for the internal structure of Jupiter. He joined LPL in 1972 after accepting Gerard Kuiper's offer of helping to establish a graduate program in the brand-new Department of Planetary Sciences. From 1977 to 1981, Hubbard was Director of LPL and Head of the Department of Planetary Sciences. In 2005, Professor Hubbard joined the Juno mission team; Juno, which lauched in 2011, is scheduled for Jupiter orbit insertion in 2016. As a co-investigator, Hubbard will share responsibility for analysis of Juno gravity data. Professor Hubbard is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2005 he received the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize of the Division for Planetary Sciences, American Astronomical Society. Asteroid 11216 “Billhubbard” was named in his honor.
The Blitzer Award is funded through the Blitzer Teaching Award Fund, and commemorates Professor Leon Blitzer and his wife, Pauline Meyer Blitzer.
Dr. Shane Byrne has been notified by the UA Provost of his promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure beginning with the 2013-2014 academic year.
Shane earned his Ph.D. from CalTech in 2003 and joined LPL as an Assistant Professor in 2007. His research interests are surface processes on planetary bodies throughout the solar system, especially those processes which affect, or are driven by, planetary ices. He is a deputy-PI on HiSCI and a co-I on HiRISE. Shane teaches a core course in the department curriculum (PTYS 554), as well as a required undergradute minor course (PTYS 411), and leads the fieldtrip course each semester (PTYS 594A).
Congratulations, Shane!
