My research focuses on the use of spectroscopy to determine the composition and origin of various Solar System objects. My efforts have centered on the mineralogy and surface features of comets, asteroids, meteorites, and the Moon; with occasional diversions to Mars and environmental monitoring of the Earth. I am the director of UMD's Small Bodies Group (SBG) a thriving collaboration of researchers and computer scientists working to understand the origins and evolution of comets and asteroids using a variety of telescopic and spacecraft data and archiving such data for future generations.

I have been involved in numerous planetary missions, which currently include the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and the planetary defense impact experiment DART. I was the Deputy PI for the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI), a Participating Scientist for the Dawn Mission at Vesta, and was a Co-I for Deep Impact, Stardust NExT (New Exploration of Tempel), and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M-cubed) on Chandrayaan-1. I was also the PI for Comet Hopper (CHopper) mission concept, one of three finalists for the 2012 Discovery mission selection, and am involved in many on-going mission proposals.

For ten years, prior to coming to the UMD, I worked for SAIC's (Science Applications International Corporation's) Advanced Technology Applications Division, where I was Chief Scientist and a member of SAIC's Corporate Science and Technology Council and worked on Earth and planetary remote sensing projects.


ADS Listing for Jessica Sunshine
Astro-PH Listing for Jessica Sunshine