Faculty News

Alfred McEwen, professor of planetary science at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and principal investigator of the largest imaging campaign ever launched to another planet, has been awarded NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest NASA honor given to a non-government employee.

McEwen accepted the award on June 30 during a ceremony at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

As the principal investigator on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, McEwen oversees the most ambitious undertaking ever launched to image another planet. HiRISE has yielded stunning photographs in unprecedented detail that have dramatically changed our view of the Red Planet.

Under McEwen's leadership, the HiRISE mission team has gone out of its way to serve not only the science community but also the general public by making efforts to release the data as quickly as possible after they become available and making them accessible via user-friendly tools.

Nicknamed the "people's camera," the HiRISE camera has been aimed at imaging targets on Mars chosen by members of the public through a program called HiWish, which started last year.

"This award really recognizes the whole HiRISE team," McEwen said. "It's a joint effort involving hundreds of people, including those who developed the instrument, especially at Ball Aerospace, to the experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who have run the mission, to the people at Lockheed Martin where the spacecraft was built. And then there are those here at the UA of course, who run the camera and collect the scientific data, interpret them and make them available to the scientific community as well as the public."

According to NASA, the Distinguished Public Service Medal is granted only to individuals whose distinguished accomplishments contributed substantially to the NASA mission. The contribution must be so extraordinary that other forms of recognition would be inadequate.

McEwen said the HiRISE mission has made it possible to really understand active surface processes on Mars.

"For the first time we have the resolution and the capability to repeatedly image places to observe change of the surface that we did not know about before. We did not know whether the Martian sand dunes were active or not � now we do. We now know there are gullies that are active in the wintertime when there is carbon dioxide in the ground. Other features are active in the summer. If we want to understand geology, it's so much better to see things change instead of trying to interpret a static picture."

After working at the U.S. Geological Survey's Branch of Astrogeology in Flagstaff, McEwen obtained a doctorate in planetary geology at Arizona State University before joining LPL in 1996.

He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of numerous NASA Group Achievement Awards for his contributions to planetary missions.

HiRISE has been crucial in helping NASA assess and select landing sites for future missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL, set to launch this fall. The size of a small SUV, MSL is the largest rover ever built to explore the Martian surface.

"Selecting a site for landing and roving is a balance of science potential and engineering constraints or risk," McEwen explained. "One site may be more scientifically promising but also more risky."

To date, after five years of circling the Red Planet, the HiRISE camera has imaged 1.3 percent of its surface. But according to McEwen, global coverage was never intended to or even hoped for this experiment.

At a resolution of roughly a foot per pixel, it would take many pixels to cover Mars, and even at the highest data rate of any previous deep space mission it takes a long time to cover Mars at that scale.

HiRISE is complemented by another camera, called the Context Camera, or CTX, which shoots pictures at 6 meters per pixel. CTX already has covered 60 percent and with a few more mission extension, probably could achieve full coverage of the Martian terrain.

McEwen is also the principal investigator on an upcoming Mars imaging program called High-resolution Stereo Color Imager, or HiSCI, for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, set to launch in January 2016. As part of the joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency, or ESA, the UA-operated HiSCI camera will deliver high-resolution stereo color imaging at a much wider coverage than HiRISE.

HiSCI's primary mission is to measure trace gases in the Martian atmosphere. For this purpose, the spacecraft will carry two spectrometers to analyze trace gases using ultraviolet to infrared spectroscopy.

Michael J. Drake was born July 8, 1946 in Bristol, England. He grew up in England and attended college at Victoria University of Manchester where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology with honors in 1967. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Geology working with Dan Weill at the University of Oregon. After a spending a year as a postdoctoral research associate with John Wood at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Mike migrated to the University of Arizona, where he remained for the rest of his career. In Tucson he met and married his wife Gail Georgenson and together they have two well-accomplished children Matthew and Melissa and one granddaughter Elsie. Mike became a naturalized citizen of the United States and was a proud American.

Mike was an accomplished scientist with well over 100 published peer-reviewed papers. He was a master at synthesizing diverse constraints and constructing a coherent picture of events of huge scale. Some examples are his models for lunar basalt petrogenesis, magma ocean crystallization on the Earth, Mars, and Vesta, and the impact origin of the Moon. His body of published work contributed an enormous amount to our understanding of the formation, differentiation, solidification, and outgassing of planetesimals and planets. For his doctoral research Mike studied trace-element partitioning by developing an electron probe technique for rare earth element (REE) analysis. Mike focused especially on REE partitioning in plagioclase, which proved critical to understanding the formation of the feldspathic lunar crust. His work on REE geochemistry also led to his convincing study that Vesta is the source of the HED meteorites.

Mike went on to study a wide range of planetary materials including lunar and Martian meteorites. His principal research interests involved "big picture" questions of the formation and evolution of the solar system. Mike is best known for his studies on the partitioning of elements with affinities for metal or sulfide phases (Ga, Ge, P, V, Cr, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Mo, Sn, Co, W). Many of his experiments were carried out at very high pressures to simulate fractionation during core formation. These very difficult experiments provided critical data for assessing the accretion and differentiation histories of the Earth, the Moon, the terrestrial planets, and their meteorite building blocks. Mike's careful experiments had a profound effect because he has used the results with great insight to understand the geochemical processes that happen as planets evolve. In his final years he studied the origin of water in the terrestrial planets and pioneered the idea that adsorption of water on silicate grain surfaces was a mechanism by which the terrestrial planets accreted.

Mike's breadth of research expertise led to his achieving the rank of Professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), the Arizona Research Laboratories, and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. He was appointed Head of the Department of Planetary Sciences and Director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1994, a position he held until 2011. His numerous contributions to the University of Arizona were recognized in 2005 when he was appointed as Regents' Professor. Under his leadership LPL successfully built and flew a variety of spacecraft instruments including the Imager for Mars Pathfinder, the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on Cassini/Huygens, the IMAGE Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, and the Gamma-ray Spectrometer Suite on Mars Odyssey. In addition, under Mike's leadership LPL scientists were selected as Team Leader on the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer on the Cassini mission and the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Under his watch, LPL built the Surface Stereo Imager and Robotic Arm cameras and the TEGA instrument on Phoenix, and successfully operated Phoenix on the Martian surface from the University of Arizona campus.

Mike received many accolades for his research accomplishments. He was named a fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 1980, the American Geophysical Union in 2002, and the Geochemical Society in 2002. He was a founding fellow of the Arizona Arts, Sciences and Technology Academy. He served as Vice-President then President of the Meteoritical Society from 1997-1998 and the Geochemical Society from 1996-1999. He was awarded the Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society in 2004. Asteroid (9022) 1988 PC1 was named Drake in his honor by Carolyn Shoemaker. Mike played a key role in defining the planetary science research priorities of the United States, serving on the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee, the Lunar Exploration Science Working Group and as Chair of the NASA Solar System Exploration Subcommittee, among many other service commitments.

As his crowning achievement, Mike had the vision to develop the OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return mission concept. His leadership of the OSIRIS-REx team was instrumental in its success of moving into a selected flight mission project. The scientific goals of the mission are to investigate the possibility of asteroid delivery of prebiotic molecules to Earth and Mars, to connect the meteorite collection to the astronomical asteroid spectral database, to investigate near-Earth resources that may be used by humans going to the Moon and Mars, and to improve our ability to mitigate against devastating near-Earth object impacts. As the mission leader Mike established the OSIRIS-REx guiding philosophy of obtaining excellence at every level, allowing for clear and open communication across all levels of the team, and staying focused on the mission objectives. He left no stone unturned and took extreme efforts to establish a multi-generational strategy for mission management that will ensure mission success.

Mike was a leader in the scientific community. More importantly he had the insight to ensure he had the time for his students and always encouraged them to follow their own ideas and take chances. Mike was a dedicated educator and a strong believer in supporting the next generation of scientists and leaders. He received the UA College of Science Career Distinguished Teaching Award in 1999 and the University of Arizona Senior Honorary BobCats Outstanding Faculty Member Award in 2006. He inspired many young planetary scientists as the Director of State of Arizona Space Grant Consortium from 2000 to 2011. He served as the University of Arizona representative to the Universities Space Research Association from 2000 to 2011 and served on the Board of Trustees for the Universities Space Research Association from 2007 to 2011. Mike's ability to inspire and support the next generation of scientific leaders ensures that his legacy will continue well into the future.

Kudos to PTYS/LPL adjunct faculty member Steven Kortenkamp, recipient of the 2011 College of Science Innovation in Teaching Award.

Steve regularly teaches one of our Tier II General Education classes---PTYS 206 (Golden Age of Planetary Exploration). His teaching evaluations are consistently excellent and his approach to the course is always innovative. Whether it is adopting a new approach to testing (lottery-ticket-style exams that give students instant feedback) or programming his own animations of celestial relationships when he finds the existing ones inadequate, he doesn't feel confined by how things have been done before. Steve has begun trying to improve K-12 education in the topics he is teaching. He is moving toward making his animations available to K-12 teachers, using the lessons learned from his work in the classroom here to have a wider impact on astronomy education at all levels. Taking the idea of pre-college preparation even a step further, he is also the author of a series of well-received astronomy-oriented books for children.

When he is not teaching college students or writing science texts for children, Steve is a full-time Senior Scientist at the Planetary Research Institute in Tucson.

Congratulations, Steve!

In May of this year, Joe Giacalone was promoted to Professor (from Associate Professor with tenure). Congratulations, Joe!

Congratulations to Professor Jon Pelletier (Dept. of Geosciences and PTYS/LPL), who was named a 2012 Galileo Circle Fellow. This is one of the highest honors bestowed upon faculty in the College of Science.

These awards, established through the generosity of Galileo Circle members, recognize outstanding accomplishments in academic scholarship. Each Fellow receives $5,000 and lifetime membership in the Galileo Circle.

Galileo Circle Fellows are the epitome of the academic scholar, with a deep understanding over a broad range of science, a willingness to think in a truly interdisciplinary way, and an ability to inspire colleagues and students alike.

Congratulations, Jon!

Tom Zega recently joined LPL/PTYS as an Assistant Professor. Prior to arriving at LPL, Tom spent seven years in the Materials Science Division at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington D.C., first as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow, and then as staff scientist. At NRL, Tom used high-resolution electron microscopy techniques to investigate, among other things, the atomic structure and crystal chemistry of minerals within primitive meteorites to learn about the chemical evolution of the early solar system and ancient stars.

Tom was a member of the preliminary examination team for NASA's STARDUST mission, the first devoted to returning cometary material to Earth and the first to return extraterrestrial material since the Apollo missions returned lunar samples in the late sixties. A native of New Jersey, Tom earned his bachelor's degree in Geology from Rutgers University in 1996, after which he worked in the microscopy and X-ray diffraction laboratories of BASF Corporation for two years studying catalysts for environmental applications and zeolites for petrochemical refinement. Tom attended graduate school at Arizona State University where he earned his Ph.D. in 2003, also in Geology, and used transmission electron microscopy to study hydrated silicates in primitive meteorites as a means to gain insight into the aqueous chemistry that occurred on asteroids in the early solar system.

Tom's current research interests involve the study of: (1) presolar oxide grains to learn about nucleosynthesis and thermodynamics of ancient stars, (2) investigation of refractory inclusions in primitive meteorites to decipher formation of the first solids in the solar system, and (3) microstructural and molecular analysis of insoluble organic matter in primitive meteorites to gain insight into pre-biotic organic chemistry within the presolar and early solar nebula. Tom aims to build a world-class microscopy facility here at the University of Arizona that will support the wide range of research programs taking place across campus as well as the OSIRIS-REx mission when it returns the first samples from a carbonaceous asteroid in 2023.

Welcome, Tom!

Professor John Lewis retired from LPL in 2010. From the update he recently shared with us, however, it seems he is busier than ever!

Although I am nominally Emeritus, I am not exactly living life in an intellectual backwater. I do about one University speaking gig per month. The subject of space resources is very hot right now, as all the media stories about the Keck Institute asteroid retrieval mission and the "coming out party" of Planetary Resources Co. attest. I have been guest of honor (chief relic) on display at two international symposia devoted to my book, "Mining the Sky" at Vrije Universitet Amsterdam and Kyoto University. I haven't noticed anything in LPL mail about Planetary Resources, but there's a lot to be proud of there. The President is LPL's own [UA alumnus, former UA Space Grant student and president of UA SEDS] Chris Lewicki, and his advisors include [LPL alumni] Mark Sykes and Tom Jones. The company is based upon ideas set forth in "Mining the Sky," so of course I'm in the loop too. This is about the sixth such venture I've been involved with, including one involving Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker, Jeff Kargel, Larry Soderblum, and the two Original Lewises, that we put together just before Gene was killed, but this is the first and only one to have strong financial backing (meaning investment from Google top mangement). Lewicki, Jones, and I are all involved in the Keck Institute asteroid retrieval proposal team, aiming at moving a 500 to 1000-tonne NEA into a safe orbit around the Moon and opening it as an international research park. On the family front, fecundity is still the rule. Our six kids have now generated 32 grandchildren, of whom three are recently married (you can see where this is going).

We get one or two "scorchers" each year, when the mercury climbs to almost 80 degrees. We have extensive gardens and a large and ever-expanding family of Muscovy ducks to keep the snails ands slugs under control. Of course we also have winters: it snows here about as often as it does in Tucson. We live in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, so we get about 1/3 the rainfall of Seattle or Vancouver. Then there are the orcas, bald eagles, harbor seals, gray whales, and tourists to watch. Our home is about a mile from the ferry terminal that serves Victoria, BC, and Bouchard Gardens, both on the must-see list. [I recently made] my 6th trip to China covering the Shenzhou manned spacecraft series and the Chang'e lunar probes. I expect two more visits in the next 12 months, the Shenzhou 10 space station visit and the Chang'e 3 lunar lander and rover. It all take me back to the heady days of the 1960s, when everything was a first and events moved rapidly. "Hardly a man is now alive/ who remembers that fateful day and year."

Dr. Joellen Russell, Associate Professor in the UA Department of Geosciences, has been named to a courtesy joint appointment in the Department of Planetary Sciences (PTYS) and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Professor Russell is currently serving as the major advisor for PTYS graduate student Juan Lora. She is collaborating with Assistant Professor Daniel Apai on a pending NASA astrobiology proposal, and continues her work with former LPL faculty member, Jonathan Lunine. Professor Russell earned her Ph.D. in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego: "The Biogeochemistry of Southern Ocean Intermediate and Mode Waters."

Welcome, Joellen, from everyone at LPL!

Regents' Professor Vic Baker will be the inaugural GSA (Geological Society of America) Distinguished International Lecturer this fall, giving lectures on "Megafloods on Earth, Mars, and Beyond" and "Geological History of Water on an Earth-like Planet" during a tour across Europe in October. Congratulations to Vic on the honor, and good luck on the tour.

The board game, Constellations: The Game of Stargazing and the Night Sky, produced by Xtronaut Enterprises, was awarded a 2018 Mensa Select seal from American Mensa. LPL Professor Dante Lauretta, chief science advisor for Xtronaut, co-created the game. The Mensa seal, awarded to only five games in 2018, recognizes games that are "original in concept, challenging and well-designed," and that "provide a high value for the price, are easy to comprehend and play, and prove highly entertaining."