![]() ![]() I didn't think I was going to stay at JPL, but I ended up really liking it, and I got hired as a research scientist. It was pretty different from what my thesis work had been on, but it sounded really interesting. So I was looking for a postdoc, and I found one at JPL. A postdoc position is kind of a stepping stone between grad school and faculty positions or other more permanent positions. I thought I eventually wanted to be a professor somewhere. So I went to the University of Arizona for grad school and got a Ph.D. I started to learn more about planetary science by taking classes and realized that was what I was really interested in. A lot of times it's in the geology department. I didn't really realize planetary science existed, but luckily Cornell is one of the few universities where planetary science is in the astronomy department. So I was an astronomy major at Cornell University in New York. I have wanted to be an astronomer since I was nine years old. Tell us a bit about your background and what brought you to JPL. I'm in meetings with the engineers and with other scientists, talking about mission requirements, observation plans and things like that. Then, for the mission work, it's a lot more meetings. For example, if we think we know the physical properties of a surface, how are those going to affect how the surface heats up or cools down over the course of a day? I compare what we find to the observations and circle back and forth until we have a better idea of what those surface materials are like. We do a lot of modeling to help interpret the data that we get. I do a lot of computer coding and programming. When I'm analyzing the data and doing modeling, I'm usually at my computer. Sounds like fascinating work and like you're keeping busy! What is your average day like? So we're going back and looking at how likely it is that they exist. A lot of scientists in their previous work have suggested that life could originate in these volcanoes. Our goal is to understand how likely it is that there are volcanoes on the seafloor of Europa. I'm also working on a project modeling the convection in the rocky portion of Europa, underneath the liquid-water layer. So I serve as a liaison between the camera team and other parts of the project. I'm the investigation scientist for the cameras on the mission. I'm on the Europa Clipper team right now. I do similar work on the OSIRIS-REx mission. We can also look at specific features, like volcanoes, and understand their material properties. That instrument observes the Moon in infrared, which we can use to understand the geologic history, such as how rocks break down over time. I'm on the team for the Diviner instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. ![]() Tell us about some of the projects you're working on.Ī lot of my work right now is looking at the Moon. So in that case, my role is to work with the engineers to make sure that the missions we're designing will actually be able to obtain the data that we need in order to answer the science questions that we have. I am also working on mission formulation. So that involves interpreting data from spacecraft and doing some modeling to understand the physical properties of places like the Moon, asteroids and Jupiter's moon Europa. We met up with her earlier this year to talk about her journey, how a program at JPL helped set her career in motion and how she's paying it forward as a mentor to interns.Ī lot of what I do is research science. She planned to eventually become a professor, but a sort of gravitational pull has kept her at the laboratory, where in addition to lunar science, she's now involved in projects studying asteroids, Jupiter's moon Europa and future missions. A doctorate in planetary science – the study of the evolution of planets and other bodies in space – first brought her to JPL five years ago for research into the geologic history of the Moon. Elder has been interested in space science since she was young, but she didn't always imagine she'd be working at one of the few places that builds robotic spacecraft designed to venture to mysterious worlds. Catherine Elder's office is a small, cavernous space decorated with pictures of the Moon and other distant worlds she studies as a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ![]()
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