Introducing Jeff!
November 12, 2018
Hello,
I’m Jeff and I’ve been a collaborator on the MSL Science Team and a part of the APXS Science Team since 2011. I was one of those kids who watched every space shuttle launch and read every book I could find about the solar system, so I’m pretty fortunate to get to be a part of the Curiosity rover team. Here’s a little bit about me and my background.
I’m a geologist- anyone who loves geology knows it is a calling. I had a B.A. from the University of Oregon, but I later fell in love with the Earth Sciences and went back to school to learn about rocks. At Portland State University, while getting a B.S. in Geology, I was most fascinated by “Deep Time”, which is just a mysterious way of saying “a really long time ago”… or the first billion years of Earth’s 4.6 billion year history. But, most of the rocks that recorded that history were destroyed by plate tectonics, so a lot of that period really is a mystery. That is where Mars comes in. The first billion years of Mars is still accessible at the surface of the planet in some places, and it gives us a window into what the Earth might have looked like early in its history. So, I found the perfect intersection of my lifelong interest in planetary science and my growing expertise in geology.
I went on to graduate school to do an M.S. in Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico in the Institute of Meteoritics. That was when I joined the MSL Science Team as a collaborator, thanks to my advisor Dr. Penny King, an MSL Science Team member. I focused on Mars, meteorites, the characteristics of waters that may have existed on Mars, and how infrared remote sensing can be used to explore Mars.
When I finished my M.S., I moved on to the University of Western Ontario to do a Ph.D. in Geology and Planetary Science with my supervisors Dr. Mariek Schmidt and Dr. Roberta Flemming. I pretty much have ‘lived on Mars’ with the MSL Science Team during my graduate education, with Curiosity as our avatar. My other field site was on the island of Hawai’i- the volcanoes Maunakea and Kohala. I looked at the characteristics of the rocks from Earth to help understand the rocks Curiosity has been studying. Not a bad career to have- travelling to and studying geologic wonders in Hawai’i, Iceland, Oregon, Alberta, and Utah.
After I finished my Ph.D. in 2017 (a ten-year endeavor, by the way), I started my current Postdoctoral Fellowship in Dr. Ralf Gellert’s Mars group at the University of Guelph. A geologist working in a physics department is unusual, but it underlines the multi-disciplinary nature of planetary exploration.
Operating Curiosity is truly a team exercise, with dozens of engineers and scientists working together on a day-to-day basis to formulate and transmit the rover’s next instructions. It has been a privilege working with a group of remarkable experts in robotics, geology, physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Watch this blog for updates from me and other APXS team members as we continue to explore Mars.