PLANETARY SCIENCE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Public Information Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Advisor
Bruce arrived at the Planetary Science Institute in 2005 and served as Chief Financial Office up until 2022. He has more than twenty years of financial management experience including Director of Finance at Columbia University's Biosphere 2 Center. Prior to transitioning to non-profit organizations, Bruce worked for the Lisa Frank Corporation in Tucson, AZ and during his years there he held the positions of Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Director of Business Development.
Prior to moving to Arizona in 1994 he worked for the EZ Por Corporation, a national distributer of foil-ware products, in Wheeling, IL. as that company's Director of Operations and Controller.
Bruce received his bachelor's degree in 1984 from Northern Illinois University with majors in Accounting and Finance, and his CPA from the State of Illinois in 1986. Bruce also served thirteen years in the U.S. Navy - four years of which was active duty assigned to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Six stationed in Norfolk, VA. He completed multiple deployments and 9 years active reserve duty assigned to Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 51 stationed in Glenview, IL.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Professor at the University of Western Ontario
Catherine D. Neish (b. 1981) is a professor at the University of Western Ontario who studies Titan, the Moon and Venus using orbital radar. Previously known by the moniker Katie Dot, she is an avid scuba diver, a champion for social justice, and mother to Penelope.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
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- Vice - Chair 2000 - 2004, Chair 2005 - 2007
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- Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
Deborah L. Domingue (b. 1963) works at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Domingue has worked on the NEAR space mission and is deputy project scientist for the MESSENGER mission. She is an expert in photometry and Hapke theory and in the analysis of small-body remote sensing data.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Founder and Senior Scientist of the Planetary Science Institute
Davis is a Founder and Senior Scientist of the Planetary Science Institute. He served on the PSI Board of Trustees for 15 years and now enjoys status as a Trustee Emeritus. In addition to his leadership of the Institute as co-founder and Director for more than 30 years, he has made many contributions to planetary science including advancing our knowledge of asteroids and of the origin of the Moon.
Areas of Expertise
Targets: Earth, Icy satellites, Mars, Pluto, Titan
Areas of Expertise
Targets: Earth, Mars, Titan
Job Titles:
- Director for Space Science and Instrumentation at Lockheed Martin 's Advanced Technology Center
Dr. Alison Nordt is the Director for Space Science and Instrumentation at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center. She is responsible for developing and operating missions that provide observational data to advance space science knowledge. Her work involves maturing technology to support current and future space-based telescopes and instruments. She is currently the Principal Investigator for TechMAST (Technology Maturation for Astrophysics Space Telescopes) and several related internal research and development efforts. Previously, Dr. Nordt was the senior manager for Astrophysics and held several roles on the NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope) program including Program Manager, Integrated Product Team Lead and Certified Principal Engineer.
Dr. Nordt has an extensive background in structures, opto-mechanical systems and instrument development which includes engineering experience with design and analysis and hands-on hardware experience through integration and test. She also has diverse program management experience through the program lifecycle from capture through end item product delivery. Dr. Nordt holds Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Science degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. She is an AIAA Associate Fellow.
Alison and her husband have a teenage daughter and son. She enjoys sailing, flying, soccer, alpine skiing, windsurfing and SCUBA diving.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Senior Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
Robert Gaskell (b. 1945) is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. He is known for the development of stereophotoclinometry software tools, which are used to determine the shape and topography of solar system objects and for spacecraft navigation using landmark tracking.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist
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- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Senior Scientist
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Areas of Expertise
Targets: Dwarf planets, Exoplanets, Kuiper Belt, Pluto, Small satellites
Dr. Adams got her PhD from MIT in 2010, where she worked with Jim Elliot and Sara Seager on precisely-timed ground-based transit observations, in order to search for deviations caused by other planets and to improve other planetary parameters. Other major projects as a graduate student include: modeling the solid composition of super-Earths (planets with 1-10 times Earth's mass); predicting and observing occultations by Pluto, Charon, and other large Kuiper Belt objects; and analyzing the statistics of the 500 objects found by the Deep Ecliptic Survey to determine the debiased number of objects in the Kuiper Belt. As a postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with Andrea Dupree, Dr. Adams worked with the Kepler Follow-up Observing Project (now the Kepler Community Follow-up Observing Project) to obtain and analyze adaptive optics (AO) images of over a hundred stars hosting planet candidates found by the Kepler space mission. These high-resolution images reveal nearby and/or faint stars which can contaminate observations, and are also used to statistically validate a candidate as a bona fide planet. Most recently, Dr. Adams is searching for ultra-short-period planets, with orbital periods of less than a day, using K2 and Kepler data.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Member of the Themis
- Professional Page
- Scientist at the Johnson Manned Space Center
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist and Senior Education & Communication Specialist
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Areas of Expertise
Targets: Asteroids, Earth, Mars, Vesta
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist & Senior Education and Communication Specialist
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- Postdoctoral Research Scientist
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- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
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- Scientist at the Lunar
- Senior Education and Communication Specialist
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Associate Researcher at the Planetary Science Institute
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Education and Communication Specialist and Senior Scientist
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Education and Communication Specialist and Senior Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist
- Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Sarah Sonnett (b. 1984) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Through light curve analysis, she studies the rotational properties and shapes of small bodies throughout the solar system. She also analyzes asteroid survey images to search for main-belt comets.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Professional Page
Areas of Expertise
Targets: Charon, Comets, Dwarf planets, Kuiper Belt, Pluto, Trans-Neptunian objects
Dr. Susan Benecchi is passionate about astronomical research and inquiry-based science education. Her research focuses on small bodies, often binaries, in the outer solar system.
Her early work was with the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), a program to discover and dynamically characterize 500 Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) from about 2000-2005. Since 2013 she has been invovled with the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS; http://www.ossos-survey.org/) Team which was a 4-year program run on the CFHT with the MegaPrime Camera to discover and track TNOs. Our summary paper describing the survey and our 800 new discoveries with robust orbits can be found in Bannister et al. 2018 (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/aab77a/pdf). Follow-up work on the rotational variability of a sample of these objects can be found in Alexandersen et al. 2019 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.04304.pdf). Ongong observations on a sample of the surface colors of these objects are being done as part of a separate survey which we have entitled Col-OSSOS (Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey). Results from our first full sample can be found in Schwamb et al. 2019 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.08501.pdf)
Benecchi's current primary focus involves modeling eclipsing binary systems using (79360) Sila-Nunam and (385446) Manwe-Thorondor test systems (ground-based), studying the colors of KBOs in the resonance populations and characterizing 2014MU69 and other long-range TNO observing targets for the extended New Horizons mission to the Kuiper Belt with HST. Ground-based efforts describing the rotational lightcurve of 2014 MU69 prior to the fly-by can be found in Benecchi et al. 2019a (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.01.023) and the color characteristcs of our long-range objects can be found in Benecchi et al. 2019b (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.01.025).
In addition to her research work Benecchi has co-authored (with G. Kober and P. Gossard) a self-published astronomy textbook designed for (primarily Christian) home-schooled high school students entitled "The Crossroads of Science and Faith: Astronomy Through a Christian Worldview". It teaches from an old-earth perspective but is designed to be used for students holding both young-earth and old-earth persuasions. A unique aspect of the textbook is the inclusion of interviews with astronomers who also consider themselves Christians. The book is aimed at helping students to come to a coherent and integrated understanding of both their faith and modern scientific inquiry. An article about the textbook published in the American Scientific Affiliation's Journal Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith entitled "At the Crossroads of Science and Faith: An Astronomy Curriculum"
Since 1997, Dr. Benecchi has been involved with various educational outreach programs to a spectrum of audiences including elementary-college students, teachers and the general public (Project ARTIST, Project ASTRO, U. of Arizona Astronomy Camp and outreach for New Horizons). Since it's opening in 2009 Benecchi has been a professor with the online homeschool program "Freedom Project Academy" (http:www.fpeusa.org), originally teaching Physics, but now teaching Astronomy.
Dr. Benecchi is passionate about astronomical research and inquiry-based science education. Her research focuses on small bodies, often binaries, in the outer solar system. She has worked as part of the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), a program to discover and dynamically characterize 500 Transneptunian belt objects (TNOs) since 2000. Her thesis work under Dr. Jim Elliot at MIT focused on variability of KBOs, astrometric follow-up of DES objects and discovery of binaries. Her post doctoral work at Space Telescope Science Institute with Dr. Keith Noll concentrated on further characterization of the properties of transneptunian binaries, this work continues today. She is also invovled with the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS; http://www.ossos-survey.org/) Team which is a 4-year program being run on the CFHT with the MegaPrime Camera to discover and track 500 TNOs. She is the Lightcurves group team lead and also invovled with the binaries team.
Benecchi's most recent work involves modeling eclipsing binary systems using Sila-Nunam as a test system (ground-based), studying the colors of KBOs in the resonance populations (with HST) and characterizing KBOs (with HST) that are potential long-range observing targets for a (yet to be approved) extended New Horizons mission to the Kuiper Belt. She is part of the planning team for such a New Horizons Kuiper belt extended mission.
Since 1997, Dr. Benecchi has been involved with various educational outreach programs to a spectrum of audiences including elementary-college students, teachers and the general public (Project ARTIST, Project ASTRO, U. of Arizona Astronomy Camp and outreach for New Horizons). In March of 2015 she and collaborators (G. Kober and P. Gossard) self-published an Astronomy textbook entitled "The Crossroads of Science and Faith: Astronomy Through a Christian Worldview" (http://www.glimpseofhissplendor.com/). The textbook is designed for homeschooled high school students of faith (primarily Christian) and aimed at helping students to come to a coherent and integrated understanding of both their faith and modern scientific inquiry. Asteroid (21458) Susank has been named in her honor.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
Job Titles:
- Founder and Senior Scientist of the Planetary Science Institute
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Hartmann is a founder and Senior Scientist of the Planetary Science Institute. He and Don Davis (see below) are known for developing, at PSI, the current theory of the origin of the Moon by a large planetesimal impact into the forming Earth. Hartmann's current work involves development of the "PSI isochron system" of counting impact craters to infer ages of various planetary surface units. Hartmann holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy and M.S. in Geology from the University of Arizona. He was the first winner of the Carl Sagan Award from the American Astronomical Society, a winner of the G.K. Gilbert award from the Geological Society of America, and a co-winner of the Runcorn-Florensky medal from the European Geophysical Union. In addition to his planetary work, he is known for his astronomical paintings and popular writing, including textbooks, popular science, and two published novels.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
Elisabetta Pierazzo, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, was part of the science staff at Planetary Science Institute for nine years until her untimely death from cancer in 2011.
Betty 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. Her work ranged from providing detailed insights into the Chicxulub impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs to putting constraints on the thickness of the ice shell of Jupiter's moon Europa. She was interested in the rise of life and explored the delivery of organics by comets. She also studied the creation of subsurface hydrothermal systems by impacts that may have been favorable sites for life on Mars.
She made several appearances on national and international media (including National Geographic specials) to speak about the Meteor Crater in Arizona and explain its formation. Betty was innovative, rigorous, and systematic in her approach to science. She recognized the need for benchmarking and validating the different complex numerical codes to model impact and explosion cratering. She organized and led a science community effort to accomplish this major task.
In addition to her science research, Betty passionately promoted science education and public outreach. She taught undergraduates at the University of Arizona, she developed interactive websites and impact rock and meteorite kits for classroom use, as well as created professional development workshops for elementary and middle school science teachers.
Betty was an active member of the planetary science community. She served on numerous NASA review panels, was an associate editor of Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences, reviewed papers for several scientific journals, organized international workshops and meetings on impact cratering, and was an organizer of the 2007 Meteoritical Society Meeting held in Tucson, Arizona.
Betty was noted for the intensity with which she approached both life and work. Whether it was in the office, the classroom, on the volleyball court, the soccer field, or dance floor, her enthusiasm and joy were irresistible. She handled the challenges of living in a foreign country by opening her house and her kitchen to others. She was cherished by many people for her staunch friendship and support and she inspired countless people as a colleague, teacher, mentor, and friend. Her life was even more brightened with her marriage to Keith Powell in 2007.
In her last six months, Betty battled a rare form of cancer. She dealt with it aggressively and never let it overwhelm her. She was always looking towards the future. In the last week of her life, in the midst of chemotherapy, she was grading class papers, working on research papers, writing reviews and preparing education proposals with her colleagues, all the while finding time to spend precious moments with her family and friends. She was ultimately and suddenly struck down by a pulmonary embolism. Her loss is great to all those who knew her. The Planetary Science Institute and her science colleagues deeply felt the loss of this accomplished scientist. We are grateful to her husband, Keith, and to her family for the time she did have with us.
Betty was born on July 4, 1963 and died in Tucson at her home on May 15, 2011. She was 47.
Posthumously Betty has been recognized with an asteroid named for her in 2011 by the International Astronomical Society (Minor Planet 15339 Pierazzo). And in 2015, a crater on the far side of the Moon was named in her honor. Also in 2015, a school in Noale, Italy (her home town) was named for her (Istituto Comprensivo di Noale Elisabetta "Betty" Pierazzo).
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Research Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
Eric E. Palmer (b. 1968) is a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson. His research focuses on the presence and stability of water and other volatile compounds on asteroid and planetary satellite surfaces, and their detection through spectroscopic techniques.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate & Licensed Software Specialist
Job Titles:
- Secretary 1998 - 2009 ) in Memorium
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Researcher at the Planetary Science Institute
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant, Junior
Job Titles:
- Sponsored Projects Manager
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- Secretary 1997, Chair 1998
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- Senior Research Associate
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Professor at Mount Holyoke College
M. Darby Dyar (b. 1958) is a professor at Mount Holyoke College who specializes in Mössbauer spectroscopy of terrestrial and extraterrestrial material. Data from her laboratory have been vital for understanding Mössbauer measurements by the Mars Exploration Rovers.
Creedon retired from the U.S. Government in 2017 where she was Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the Department of Energy. She also served in the Pentagon as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs (2011 - 2014), overseeing policy development in the areas of missile defense, nuclear security, cybersecurity, and space. She served as counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services for many years with focus areas that included the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Threat Reduction, and Nuclear Nonproliferation. Concurrently she served as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the NNSA, Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy, and General Counsel for the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Madelyn began her career as a trial attorney at the Department of Energy. She is the founder of Green Marble Group, LLC, a consulting company, and currently serves on a number of advisory boards related to national security. She has completed a fellowship at the U.S. Study Center at the University of Sydney and is presently a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institute. She holds a J.D. from St. Louis University School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of Evansville.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- C.E.O. and Director of the Planetary Science Institute
- Scientist at the Steward Observatory
Mark grew up in the U.S. Air Force, living in numerous places around the country before going to college at the University of Oregon. He spent summers conducting photometric and polarimetric studies of eclipsing binary stars at Pine Mountain Observatory and writing his Bachelor's thesis on a search for periodicities in the lightcurve of the black-hole system, Cygnus X-1. He also studied music composition.
In 1978 he received a Bachelor of Arts, Honors College, in Physics. He subsequently studied Fourier optics and laser physics at the Oregon Graduate Center from which he received a Masters of Electronic Science in 1982. He received his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona in 1986 and was awarded its Gerard P. Kuiper Memorial Award for his research. He discovered cometary dust trails, which revealed comets to be far more rocky (refractory) than previously thought and discovered numerous rings of dust surrounding the inner solar system arising from asteroid collisions between Mars and Jupiter.
He served as a Co-Investigator on the NASA Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres in the asteroid belt. He has served as Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. He has served on and chaired numerous NASA review panels and advisory groups. He is also the founder of the Planetary Exploration Newsletter (PEN).
Mark received his Juris Doctor in 1998 from the University of Arizona and is admitted into the Arizona State Bar and to practice before the Federal District Court. In 1991 he was honored by the International Astronomical Union with the designation of Minor Planet 4435 Sykes for his discoveries. In 2007 he was the first recipient of the NASA Planetary Science Division Distinguished Service Award. In 2016 he was given the Harold Masursky Award for Meritorious Service to Planetary Science by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.
Mark has been CEO and Director of the Planetary Science Institute since 2004.
Sykes is the C.E.O. and Director of the Planetary Science Institute. He studies asteroids, comets and interplanetary dust, using both ground-based and space-based telescopes, primarily in the thermal infrared. He is the discoverer of cometary dust trails and many extended structures arising from asteroid collisions within the zodiacal cloud.
Mark is the former Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society and was made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his science advocacy. He has been honored by the designation of Minor Planet 4438 Sykes and has also been honored with the 2016 Masursky Award by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society for outstanding service to planetary science and exploration.
Mark received his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences in 1986 and J.D. in 1998 from the University of Arizona (and is admitted to the Arizona Bar). He is also a professional musician and has performed more than 30 seasons with the Arizona Opera Company's chorus. He is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate / CO
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
Maurizio is a Tucson native and received his Bachelor's degree in Accounting from the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management in 2005. He started his professional career as an auditor with a public accounting firm based in Tucson, AZ, specializing in Single Audits of Non-Profits. He later became the Corporate Controller for one of the largest home healthcare providers in Arizona before arriving at PSI. Maurizio was originally hired in 2012 as PSI's Controller and then transitioned into the Chief Operating Officer role in 2018 prior to become the CFO in 2022.
Maurizio maintains an active CPA license in the state of Arizona and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Job Titles:
- Senior Communication Specialist
Paul S. Hardersen (b. 1965) is a professor and observatory director in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota. His research includes mineralogical analysis of minor-planet surfaces using telescopic measurements in the near-infrared.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Owner of Fouse Consulting Services
Fouse is the owner of Fouse Consulting Services, LLC, (based in Scottsdale, AZ) which helps companies harness advanced technology to enable future products and processes. Previously he was VP of the Advanced Technology Center at Lockheed Martin Space. In this role, he was responsible for leading approximately 500 scientists and engineers performing research and development in space science and a variety of space systems-related technologies and capabilities. Prior to ATC Scott served as Director of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) and earlier served as Chief Technology Officer of ATL. Before joining Lockheed Martin, Scott was President and CEO of ISX Corporation, a 50-person company that specialized in creating and transitioning advanced IT systems to operational use. Scott was a leader in the DARPA "Command Post of the Future" project, which created a significant advance in C2 Systems and was the primary C2 system for Iraq at the Corp. Division, Brigade and Battalion echelons. From 2003 - 2007 Scott was a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. In that position he supported a number of studies, directorate reviews, and chaired a study on Experimentation to support Disruptive Innovation. Scott has a BS in Physics from the University of Central Florida and a MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
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- Technical Support Analyst
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute
- Senior Scientist Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Information Technology Manager
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Senior Scientist With the Planetary Science Institute
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant, Junior
Job Titles:
- Research Professor at the University of North Dakota