Spring

Congratulations to LPL's 2015 Galileo Circle Scholarship recipients: Melissa Dykhuis, Youngmin JeongAhn, Tad Komacek, Margaret Landis, Xianyu Tan, Michelle Thompson, and Rob Zellem. Galileo Circle Scholarships are awarded to the University of Arizona's finest science students and represent the tremendous breadth of research interests in the College of Science.

Galileo Circle Scholars receive $1,000 each; these awards are supported through the generous donations of Galileo Circle members. The Galileo Scholars were honored at an early evening reception held on April 9, 2015.

Congratulations to all our 2015 Galileo Scholars!

Sarah Peacock is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for Fall 2014. Sarah earned the award for her work as a GTA with Dr. Steven Kortenkamp in the PTYS/ASTR 206 course. She is a second-year graduate student working with Associate Professor Travis Barman.

The students that Sarah worked with nominated her as deserving for going "above and beyond," communicating enthusiasm for course content as well as for her own research, and crediting her with their success in the course. Dr. Kortenkamp cites a special challenge for Sarah and her fellow PTYS 206 GTA: having to learn and operate the new full-dome digital projection system at Flandrau, where the course is taught. When not under the Flandrau dome, Sarah  proctored regular evening observing sessions, held bi-weekly one-on-one tutoring sessions and group help sessions, and organized a special project that connected the undergraduate students with the LPL Art of Planetary Science exhibition by encouraging students to submit pieces to the show for extra credit. Sarah believes "that the show was a great way to make planetary science more accessible" to the students.

Recipients of the Outstanding GTA Award receive funds of up to $1,000 to support travel to a professional meeting of their choice.

Recent alumna Ingrid Daubar (2014) was the recipient of one of four Wiley-Blackwell Awards for outstanding presentations by students at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Casablanca for her talk on "New Dated Impacts on Mars and the Current Cratering Rate."

Catherine Elder (advisor: Adam Showman) and James Keane (advisor: Isamu Matsuyama) each received a 2014 AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Award. Catherine won for her paper titled, "Convection and Melt Migration in Io’s Mantle." James received the award for a poster titled, "The Contribution of Impact Basins and Mascons to the Lunar Figure: Evidence for Lunar True Polar Wander, and a Past Low-Eccentricity, Synchronous Lunar Orbit." Typically the top 3-5% of presenters in each section/focus group are awarded an Outstanding Student Paper Award.

Sarah Morrison (advisor: Kaitlin Kratter) advanced to the semi-final round of the 2015 UA Grad Slam competition. Sarah's Grad Slam topic was: “Mind the Gap: Hunting for Exoplanets." Grad Slam is a campus-wide competition for the best 3-minute talk about student research and discovery. All disciplines are encouraged to participate. More information and video about Grad Slam is online from UA News.

Sarah Peacock (advisor: Travis Barman) was included on the NSF Honorable Mention list for her Graduate Research Fellowship Program proposal. Although she did not receive a GRFP, Sarah’s name will be listed on the GRFP web site and she will be provided with enhanced access to cyberinfrastructure resources, including supercomputing time, in support of research toward completion of the graduate program of study.

Michelle Thompson (advisor: Tom Zega) was first author on a paper in Earth, Planets and Space that was named by the journal as one of their highlighted papers for 2014. The paper, titled, "Microchemical and structural evidence for space weathering in soils from asteroid Itokawa," was co-authored by Roy Christoffersen, Thomas J. Zega, and Lindsay P. Keller; Earth, Planets and Space (2014) 66:89 (13 August 2014).