Mike is a Distinguished University Professor and the PI both for the EPOXI mission in NASA's Discovery Program and for the Small Bodies Node of NASA's Planetary Data System. He was also the PI for the Deep Impact mission. His research has for many years emphasized comets and extended also to asteroids. Observational studies have included observations of comets at all wavelengths from EUV to radio to study the nuclei, the dust, and the gas. He has also participated in the major programs to observe occultations of asteroids as means of determining their size and shape. He has also done numerical simulations to interpret his observations. His graduate students have made successful careers both on the observational and on the theoretical side of cometary astronomy.
Tony's research has primarily focussed on studies of comets, Centaurs and Kuiper Belt objects. Most recently, he has been utilizing the coma morphology (jets, etc.) observed in different comets to infer the rotational characteristics of their nuclei and to find the locations of active regions that produce the jets. Other recent cometary studies include using narrowband photometry to determine the gas production rates for various comets and modeling dust tails to infer some of the characteristics of the dust grains and to determine the activity levels of the comet as a function of time. He also observes the lightcurves of Centaurs and Kuiper belt objects to determine their physical and rotational characteristics. His other interests include the evolutionary processes and relationships between comets, Centaurs and KBOs, solar system formation, celestial mechanics and digital image processing.
Lori is a planetary scientist with a background in spectroscopy. As a graduate student, she studied UV spectra of Io to determine the composition and distribution of Io's tenuous atmosphere. More recently, she was a science team member of the Deep Impact mission to comet Tempel 1, using the IR spectrometer to study the abundance, distribution, and production rate of molecules in the coma and ejecta of a Jupiter family comet. From the Deep Impact data, she was able to map the water and carbon dioxide in the innermost coma of Tempel 1. She is also on the EPOXI science team and intends to interpret the spectral data acquired at comet Hartley 2 to compare and contrast Jupiter family comets and shed light on their history in the solar system.
Doug's primary research is as a theorist attempting to understand the Solar System using dynamical models. His computer modeling includes studies on orbital dynamics of planetary rings, non-gravitational forces, planetary formation and the dynamical evolution of the Solar System.
Rosemary is a planetary scientist with a primary interest in exospheres. These are very tenuous atmospheres about planets and satellites. A long-term interest is the exosphere of Mercury. More recently she has begun to study the exosphere of the Jovian satellite Europa. She is also interested in space weathering of asteroids, leading to evolution of the surface and a possible corona. Rosemary studies these bodies using ground-based spectroscopy and mathematical modeling.
Ludmilla's main scientific interest is physics of all types of cosmic dust (interplanetary, interstellar, and circumstellar dust and planetary aerosols) and small bodies (comets, asteroids, satellites of planets, and Kuiper-Belt objects). She uses remote sensing and in-situ methods to study these objects focusing on spectrophotometry and polarimetry. She has participated in the development of astronomical and space instrumentation, and theoretical and laboratory simulations of light scattering by particles and surfaces. She is also the manager of the Small Bodies Node of the NASA Planetary Data System and works on archiving the data obtained at space-mission and ground-based observations of comets, asteroids and interplanetary (zodiacal) dust.
Jianyang's primary research interest is spatially resolved photometry of cometary nuclei and asteroids. From the reflectance of the surface of atmosphereless bodies in response to illumination and viewing geometry, he studies the compositions and physical properties of these bodies. As a science team member on the Deep Impact mission, he studied the photometric properties of the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 using high resolution images. More recently he used images obtained by Hubble Space Telescope to construct surface maps of the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, targets of Dawn mission.
Lucy's background is in geology and geophysics. She was a member of the NEAR science team and is the EPO Director for the Deep Impact and Dawn Discovery missions. On NEAR she was interpreting the remote sensing data of Eros in terms of meteorite properties and physical processes on the surface of Eros. For Deep Impact, she is involved in interpretation of spectra taken by the flyby spacecraft of the surface of the nucleus and excavated crater. She has studied the surface composition of asteroids, the Moon, Mars meteorites and the Galilean satellites of Jupiter in her career. She is currently considering the interpretation of the surface of Comet Borrelly in preparation for the Deep Impact mission's data on comet Tempel 1. She is founding and past director of the College Park Scholars' Program, Science, Discovery & the Universe.
Stef oversaw the Small Telescope Science Program (STSP), a collaboration of amateur and professional small telescope observatories providing science data, for the Deep Impact mission. In addition, she has been assisting with programming duties for PDS-SBN.
Nelly Mouawad is a post-doc on the MESSENGER MASCS team working with Dr. Rosemary Killen on Mercury's exosphere. She joined the department of astronomy in 2007 and has since been working on understanding the physical processes that generate the Mercurian exosphere and the composition of the exosphere. For these purposes she analyzes and models the ground-based data taken at the Kitt Peak observatory and space data taken with the MASCS instrument on MESSENGER.
Anne is the principal programmer, database administrator and web master for the Small Bodies Node of the NASA Planetary Data System, located here at UMCP under the direction of Mike A'Hearn. She will be providing similar support for the Deep Impact mission archives. She recently completed a Bachelor of Music Theory degree so that when she tells her young nephews that their music is crap, she can back it up with diagrams.
Derek's primary interest is understanding the origins of the solar system through dynamical modeling. His specialty is planetesimal dynamics, which includes planet formation (origins of solar systems), collision dynamics, planetary rings, granular dynamics, and binary asteroids.
Elizabeth served as co-curator for the Deep Impact website and as liaison to the amateur astronomy community. She is now working on the Dawn mission, again as a liaison to the amateurs (dawn-aop.astro.umd.edu). She is also the webmaster for EPOXI. Within the department, Elizabeth is the director of the campus observatory.
Currently the majority of his effort is in support of the NASA Discovery mission Deep Impact. He is the Technical Contract Monitor for the University of Maryland (UM) Instruments Contract with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., located in Boulder Colorado. Though much of his monitoring is done from the University by way of telecons and NetMeeting, he spends an average of about one week per month on location in Boulder, and at times like instrument integration and testing, intends to be on-site for all critical events. He also provides general Deep Impact Science Team support, investigating and looking out for the science interests and issues that arise during the design and production of the instruments and spacecraft.
Dennis also provides technical and outreach support for the UM Observatory and for the Astronomy Department, working to maintain and improve the technical capabilities of the Observatory and the Department.
Working with Lucy McFadden, he has contributed to the first NASA Discovery mission NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous). With the MSI-NIS team, he worked on the Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIS) and the Multi-Spectral Imaging Camera (MSI), calibrating the NIS, developing and implementing data verification and validation procedures, and working on data analysis and interpretation. Currently he and Lucy hope for funding from the NEAR Data Analysis Program to continue this work.
Coming from a background of instrument design and construction, he has worked on improving the UM Comet Imaging and Spectroscopy System, and more recently on upgrading the UM Occultation System, as well as data reduction and analysis from these and other instruments, most notably comet observations using the Echelle spectrometers on the KPNO 4-m Mayall telescope and the Keck 10-m telescope.
Through the Technology Extension Service of the UM Engineering Research Center, he provides consultation on optics-related issues to Maryland businesses.
Through a grant from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships, he is also working with the Maryland company LeaTech to improve their wind-tunnel sensor systems.
Alan Gersch is a graduate student working with Mike A'Hearn. He is creating computer models of the spectra of a comet's coma, including optical depth effects, for the purpose of better understanding DI (and other) cometary spectra.
