Speakers

Dr. John Grunsfeld is currently the President & CEO of Endless Frontier Associates.  He is a former NASA Astronaut with five space shuttle missions to his credit, including multiple spacewalks, masterful surgeries and upgrades on the Hubble Space Telescope.  His spaceflights include Space Shuttles Endeavour in 1995, Atlantis in 1997, Discovery in 1999, Columbia in 2002, and Atlantis in 2009.  He was the chief scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. from 2003-2004.  His last visit to Hubble was in 2009, after which he became the Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, where he managed the science program for Hubble and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.  He returned to NASA Headquarters as the Associate Administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate from 2012-2016.  Today John is an Emeritus Scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, working on Hubble observations of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and collaborating on the design of the next generation of space-serviceable telescopes.

Dr. Grunsfeld holds a B.A. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago, postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago, and a position as Senior Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.  He was selected as an astronaut in 1992 and first went to space in 1995.  He was inducted into the astronaut hall of fame in 2015.  From his NASA profile: “His quest to become an astronaut started at 6 years old.  As a child, he toted a lunch box decorated with a NASA Gemini theme, celebrating an early human spaceflight program. His mother was happy to encourage him, he noted at an awards ceremony. ‘She thought it would help my interest in science and math and she said there’s no chance I’d ever actually become an astronaut, so she didn’t have to worry.’ ”

Dr. Charles “Karl” Hibbitts is a planetary scientist working to understand the compositions of the surfaces our Moon, the Jovian satellite Europa and other airless bodies in our solar system.  Using a combination of laboratory research and theoretical modeling to interpret the results from spacecraft data he attempts to understand the processes that affect their surfaces, such as how water forms on the Moon and if Europa is potentially habitable.  He is also the system integration lead for the lunar In-Situ Resource Utilization focus group within the NASA-funded Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative where role is to enable the development of technology for the extraction oxygen and water on the Moon for supporting a sustained presence on the Moon.

Dr. Hibbitts is the deputy principal investigator (PI) of the recently launched Europa Clipper MISE infrared mapping spectrometer destined for Jupiter’s moon Europa and was deputy PI on the NASA BRRISON and BOPPS stratospheric balloon missions. He conducts his laboratory work at a facility he developed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory that is uniquely capable of determining how materials respond when exposed to the vacuum, temperature, radiation, and micrometeoroid environments similar to surfaces of the Moon and Europa.

Dr. Hibbitts earned a B.A. in Physics from Cornell University, a B.S. in Geology from the University of New Mexico, and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics from the University of Hawaii.

Prof. Natalie Hinkel is a planetary astrophysicist who studies elements in stars near to the Sun. Because stars and planets are formed together and from the same material, the composition of the host star can be used as a proxy for the planet. Understanding the planet’s composition gives important insight into the interior structure and mineralogy. These properties play a major role in the habitability of a planet, determining whether a small planet is a rocky Earth-like planet, an overly dense super-Mercury, or a light water-world/mini-Neptune.

As the cornerstone of her work, Dr. Hinkel developed and operates the largest database of elements measured inside stars, called the Hypatia Catalog (hypatiacatalog.com). The breadth (number of stars) and depth (number of elements) of data within the Hypatia Catalog makes it uniquely useful to explore physical and chemical stellar data as well as planetary properties. Prof. Hinkel’s work in these research areas involves collaborating with other interdisciplinary scientists who study geology, (astro)biology, and planets within the Solar system.

Dr. Hinkel completed a B.A. in Physics at Oberlin College in 2005 and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Arizona State University in 2012. Her postdoctoral work was done at the California Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt University. She joined Louisiana State University in 2023. George Takei (a.k.a. Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek) once said Dr. Hinkel was “a trailblazer”.

Prof. Lyra’s research program focuses on computer simulations of planet formation in circumstellar disks.  The simulation data creates models that can be compared to astronomical observations.  He is a principal investigator in the theoretical and computational astrophysics network “Planet Formation in the Southwest +” (PFITS+) which studies protoplanetary disks, planet formation, and fluid dynamics. 

Prof. Lyra holds a B.Sc. in Astronomy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and both a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Astronomy from Uppsala University, Sweden.  He was a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City and at NASA-JPL/Caltech (as a Sagan fellow).  Dr. Lyra joined NMSU in 2019.

Chip is well known for his studies on the Moon’s history and leads the NASA-funded CASA Moon initiative here in New Mexico which over the next five years will study the lunar crust through lunar sample analysis.  He is the Originator and Promoter of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program and co-led the ANGSA team of scientists and engineers to open up Apollo mission samples that were stored away for 50 years and used new technology to examine them.  The ANGSA initiative was one of NASA’s first steps to prepare to return humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program.  Currently a Senior Research Scientist in the UNM Institute of Meteoritics, Dr. Shearer is also a Research Professor in the UNM Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. He is one of the co-leads for the University of New Mexico Sustainable Space Research Grand Challenge.  In 2024 he received the Geological Society of America Gilbert award for outstanding contributions to planetary science.

Dr. Shearer earned a B.A. in Geology from Middlebury College, a M.S. in Geology from the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in Geology from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Eileen Ryan is the Director/Senior Scientist of the Magdalena Ridge Observatory 2.4-meter telescope – an instrument whose mirror is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope. She specializes in finding and characterizing Near Earth Objects, including asteroids, comets and manmade satellites. Dr. Ryan is also known for her work in the physics of collisions and catastrophic fragmentation. She was a participating scientist on NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft mission, which successfully demonstrated NASA’s ability to alter the orbit of an asteroid. DART was sent to the binary system Didymos, and kinetically impacted its small moon Dimorphos, as the first test of NASA’s deflection technology.

Dr. Ryan joined the Magdelena Ridge Observatory (MRO) in 2002. The MRO 2.4-meter Telescope is located on 1,000 acres at 10,600 feet in the Magdalena Mountains of the Cibola National Forest in Socorro County, New Mexico (NM). This multi-use research and educational observatory is built and operated by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) with offices located on the NMT campus in Socorro, NM. As Director of the 2.4-meter Telescope, Dr. Ryan manages its technical, financial, and operational activities, and leads the development of scientific and military initiatives. She is the Principal Investigator of a NASA-funded Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) follow-up program, together with Co-Investigator Dr. William Ryan. This project has been funded by NASA since 2008 to obtain high-precision astrometry of near-Earth asteroids and comets, and to derive physical characterization data such as spin rates and spectral composition, to better assess the potential danger to Earth from these objects.

Dr. Ryan earned a B.A. in Physics from Rutgers, a M.S. in Astronomy from New Mexico State University, and a Ph.D. in Planetary Geophysics from the University of Arizona.

Prof. Morales-Juberías specializes in planetary science, particularly in studying planetary atmospheric dynamics of gas-giants, a large class that includes Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Extra Solar Giant Planets, and Brown Dwarfs.  He uses extensive observations of these objects from ground-based telescopes and interplanetary spacecraft, as well as numerical models.  Studying the atmospheres of different bodies in the Solar System in a comparative way, Dr. Morales-Juberías can create a broad critical understanding on how these systems work that could not be accomplished by studying the Earth alone.

Prof. Morales-Juberías earned a Ph.D. in Applied Physics (Planetary Sciences) from the University of the Basque Country in Spain, and completed a post-doc at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.  He has been at New Mexico Tech since 2005.

Dr. Bryan Butler is a staff scientist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, currently supporting operations of the Very Large Array (VLA) and VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) within the New Mexico Operations Department of NRAO.  He also spends part of his time developing the design concepts for the construction and operation of the next generation VLA (ngVLA).  His primary research involves using long-wavelength (sub-millimeter to meter wavelengths) observations to measure the radio emission and reflection properties of planetary atmospheres and surfaces of bodies in our solar system.

Dr. Butler earned a B.S. from Utah State University in 1989 with a double major in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and minors in Math and Physics.  He completed both an M.S. (1991) and a Ph.D. (1994) in Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology, with a Ph.D. minor in Computer Science.  He was a Jansky Postdoctoral Researcher for NRAO from 1994-1996, and has been a scientific staff member since then, working in various areas, including many in management.

Dr. Bethany Chidester is a staff scientist in Physical Chemistry and Spectroscopy at Los Alamos National Laboratory, specializing in the experimental study of materials under extreme high pressures and temperatures. She recently conducted the first shock temperature measurements on olivine and iron-bearing enstatite, two of the most abundant mineral compositions in Earth and the other terrestrial planets in our Solar System. Those measurements have been used to inform models of the Moon-forming giant impact. Previously, Dr. Chidester’s research constrained the abundance of long-lived radioactive elements in Earth’s metallic core, assessing their impact on the planet’s magnetic field through geologic time.

She earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Toledo, a Ph.D. in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago, and held postdoctoral positions at Sandia National Labs, UC Davis, and was a Director’s Postdoc Fellow at LANL.

Dr. Matt Heavner is the Director of Los Alamos National Lab’s (LANL) Feynman Center for Innovation and serves as the focal point for LANL’s Arctic Work. He is also a Research Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Scientist with the New Mexico Consortium.

Matt’s scientific background in geophysics includes published studies of many aspects of the Earth System: space weather and aurora, glaciology, lightning and atmospheric electricity, and seismology. At LANL, Matt has applied his technical background to lead the On-orbit U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System Radio Frequency (RF) sensors on the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) constellation. To ensure this national capability, Matt relied on expertise in lightning discharge physics, ionospheric propagation, digital signal processing, satellite constellation performance, and nuclear weapons source phenomenology.

In addition to his scientific interests, Dr. Heavner has engaged at the intersection of science and policy. During 2014-2017, Matt was the Assistant Director of Global Security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). At OSTP, Dr. Heavner focused on a range of nuclear issues including strategic deterrence capabilities, non-proliferation, counter-proliferation, early detection of nuclear proliferation, naval nuclear reactors, civilian nuclear energy, medical isotope production, and the health and sufficiency of the nuclear enterprise. At OSTP, Dr. Heavner also worked on planetary defense as well as Arctic topics and supported President Obama’s visit to the Arctic.

Dr. Heavner earned his PhD in Physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and his bachelor degrees in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Dr. Nina Lanza is the Team Lead for the Moon to Mars Team in Space Science and Applications (ISR-1) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She is the Principal Investigator of the ChemCam instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory rover and a Co-Investigator for the SuperCam instrument onboard the Mars 2020 rover. Her research focuses on understanding the origin and nature of manganese minerals on Mars and how they may serve as potential biosignatures. She is also studying rock coatings, which provide a record of rocks’ interaction with atmosphere, water, soil, and potentially life. Dr. Lanza has done geologic fieldwork across the word including the Miller Range, Antarctica; Devon and Axel Heiberg islands, Canadian Arctic; Rio Tinto, Spain; and the Atacama Desert, Chile. She was a field team member for the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) project in 2015–2016. She is a sought-after science communicator who has contributed to programming on The Science Channel, National Geographic, BBC, and Curiosity Stream.

Dr. Lanza was educated at Smith College (AB), Wesleyan University (MA), and the University of New Mexico (PhD). She is thrilled to be living her childhood dream of working on a spaceship.