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SSERVI Award Winners 2022

07/19/2022
Recognizing that science and exploration go hand in hand, NASA created SSERVI in 2013 to advance human exploration of the Moon and other solar system destinations. The SSERVI Awards recognize outstanding achievement in exploration science and recipients have each made unique contributions to NASA’s human exploration efforts. SSERVI Award winners are nominated by their academic peers and are selected by a committee based at SSERVI’s central office. The awards will be presented along with invited lectures from the recipients at the 2022 NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF) taking place July 19-21. It is our great pleasure to announce this year’s SSERVI award winners. Each is exceptionally deserving, and each is an outstanding member of our community, providing both exceptional science and strong leadership.

Susan Mahan Niebur Early Career Award: Dr. O.J. Tucker and Dr. Kelsey Young

Angioletta Coradini Mid-Career Award: Dr. Carolyn van der Bogert

Michael J. Wargo Exploration Science Award: Dr. Ben Bussey

Eugene Shoemaker Distinguished Scientist Medal Dr. Lisa Gaddis

Each of this year’s winners is exceptionally deserving, and it’s an honor to work with them to help further our great efforts as we get ever closer to what we all hope is a permanent presence on our Moon.

Goddard's "Cutting Edge" magazine's first Early Career Spotlight focuses on Bethany Theiling

08/03/2021
The "Cutting Edge" technology magazine's first Early Career Spotlight focuses on Goddard’s Bethany Theiling and her work toward autonomous exploration of our solar system’s ice moons.

Presidential Early Career Awards

07/10/2019
We congratulate Giada Arney, Shawn Domagal-Goldman and Jennifer Stern, on receiving Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The Whitehouse web page describes the awards as, “Established in 1996, the PECASE acknowledges the contributions scientists and engineers have made to the advancement of science, technology, education, and mathematics (STEM) education and to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, and community outreach. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy coordinates the PECASE with participating departments and agencies.”

Giada Arney, is recognized for far-reaching influence in predicting, observing, and communicating about habitability and the potential for life beyond Earth. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, is recognized for his work on the physical models of exoplanets, and Jennifer Stern, for her work on Mars habitability and life detection. Congratulations Giada, Shawn and Jennifer, on this outstanding achievement, and for representing our scientific community here at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Poster Blowout 2019 is in the books!

02/27/2019
photo of people at the poster party

Photos from this year's Poster Blowout are available now. Congratulations to everyone, especially this year's winners!

Poster Blowout 2018

02/05/2018
Note from the Director:
I would like to thank the Director’s Science Committee for putting on an amazingly successful event where scientists and engineers across Goddard shared their work and made new contacts. The interdisciplinary interactions were especially exciting and crossed all four science disciplines.
Best,
Colleen

Click the title of this news item or the image below for more images from the poster party. scientists standing in front of a poster

PEL role in New Frontiers Phase A Study

12/22/2017
The PEL has a key role in the Dragonfly mission to Titan, recently downselected for further study for potential launch under NASA's New Frontiers Program. Dragonfly is a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan, an ocean world in our solar system. If selected, the PEL will provide the mass spectrometer to examine surface composition. Dr. Melissa Trainer is one of two Deputy PIs for the mission as well as the lead of the mass spectrometer. Dr. William Brinckerhoff is also on the mass spectrometer and science teams.

Congratulations to the PEL Summer 2017 interns

08/28/2017
The Planetary Environments Laboratory interns for Summer 2017 successfully completed their projects including presentations at the annual Intern Poster Session. Shown from left to right are: Greg Wong (PSU), Jeff Davis (UMCP), Allison Fox (PSU), Maddie Roach (UNI), Rebecca Funderburg (TCU), and Trey Jean-Baptiste (Howard).

Domagal-Goldman, Holmes, Kopparapu, Melak and Ramu win 690 Peer Awards!

08/09/2017
Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Vincent Holmes, Ravi Kopparapu, Tony Melak, and Guru Ramu were honored by their Solar System Exploration Division peers on August 9th! The Planetary Environments Lab is proud and appreciative of our scientists and engineers who are very deserving of their accolades.

McAdam and Knudson on the RIS4E Expedition

08/04/2017
Dr. Amy McAdam and Christine Knudson participated in the 2017 Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) Remote, In Situ, and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration (RIS4E) expedition to the Portillo Volcanic Field in New Mexico June 4-10, 2017. They brought a handheld Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument with them, which allowed them to get elemental information about the volcanic rocks and ash they were looking at while in the field. These analyses were complementary to elemental data collected with a handheld x-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrument by Kelsey Young. The two were there to assist the simulated Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) planned by Kelsey Young and Jake Bleacher. These EVAs were led by a geologist and an astronaut. For this field expedition, the geologist was Liz Rampe from Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the astronaut role was filled by Butch Wilmore, an astronaut who spent over 150 days on the International Space Station (ISS).

Domagal-Goldman describes the "Search for a second habitable Earth"

05/31/2017
Shawn Domagal-Goldman did an interview for a piece on Engadget on “The search for a second habitable Earth.” In the article, Domagal-Goldman discusses the hopes and challenges for discovering habitable (and inhabited) planets such as those in the Trappist-1 seven-planet system discovered in February. The Trappist-1 exoplanets will be one of the first targets of the $8.7 billion James Webb space telescope (JWST), set to launch in 2018. "Whether or not I'm optimistic that any life is out there, I am very optimistic that we're going to find out [either way]. And I don't think we've ever had a moment like this in the history of our species."
Shawn Domagal-Goldman

Charles Malespin recieves NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal

05/26/2017
Charles Malespin is a recipient of the 2017 NASA Agency Honor Award for "Exemplary performance in the development of groundbreaking experiments which enhanced science return from the Mars Science Laboratory mission." The Early Career Public Achievement Medal is a prestigious medal which is awarded for unusual and significant performance during the first 10 years of an individual's career in support of the NASA mission.

Science Jamboree event photos

08/04/2016
The 2016 Science Jamboree was a great success! A collection of 50 photos from the event are available now.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman gives TEDx talk on the search for life on exoplanets

04/12/2016
Shawn Domagal-Goldman’s TEDx MidAtlantic talk is now available for viewing on YouTube. In this presentation, Shawn went over how the last 20 years of exoplanet discovery has confirmed that other potentially habitable worlds exist, and the challenges we’ll need to overcome in order to find out if any exoplanets have signs of life. The talk is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7BL-UI0Rw.

Paul Mahaffy Named Director of the Solar System Exploration Division

12/11/2015
Paul Mahaffy has been named the new Director of Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division. Paul served for nearly 10 years as Chief of the Planetary Environments Laboratory, leading this group’s study of planetary atmospheres and surface environments with emphases on the modeling of atmospheres and surface environments, advanced instrument development, the study of terrestrial planetary analogs, and the development of space-qualified instruments. Paul is currently Principal Investigator of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation on the Curiosity rover and of the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) on the MAVEN Mars orbiter. He previously participated in a wide range of planetary missions, including those to Jupiter, Saturn, comets, and the moon.

Pamela Conrad - Using Curiosity to Search for Life

02/17/2015
Scientist Pamela Conrad helps give NASA’s Curiosity rover a daily to-do list to look for life’s building blocks on Mars.

Part Two of the interview.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman - Looking for What's 'Out There'

12/09/2014
Do dead planets sometimes appear alive and vice versa? Goddard researcher Shawn Domagal-Goldman uses computer modeling to imagine all kinds of planets and predict how our instruments might see them.

Part Two of the interview.

MAVEN Liveshot Campaign

11/15/2013
Jim Garvin, Pam Conrad and Michelle Thaller were featured on dozens of television stations during a Liveshot campaign for the MAVEN launch. The viewership of the stations included several million people.

Anne Kinney wins a Presidential Rank Award

08/09/2013
Anne Kinney received a 2012 Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious Executive). These awards are given to high-performing senior career employees for "sustained extraordinary accomplishment." Executives from across Government are nominated by their agency heads, evaluated by citizen panels, and designated by the President. Winners of these awards are deemed to be strong leaders, professionals, or scientists who achieve results and consistently demonstrate strength, integrity, industry, and a relentless commitment to excellence in public service.

SSED Scientists featured in CuttingEdge

10/31/2012
For applications from analyzing the chirality of amino acids on icy moons to measuring carbon-cycle gases on the run, researchers in the Solar System Exploration Division are developing advanced technologies to get the job done.
Researchers: Emily Wilson Steel (Code 694)
Stephanie Getty (Code 699)
Daniel Glavin (Code 699)

New SAM Website is Launched!

01/27/2012
The new SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) website has been launched. Visit the page to learn more about the SAM experiment on the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, currently on its way to Mars.

Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx Team!

05/25/2011
Today we heard that the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission was selected as the next New Frontiers class mission. OSIRIS-Rex is a sample return mission to an asteroid that will launch in 2016, and spend over a year exploring 1999 RQ36, acquire samples while providing geologic context, and return to Earth in 2023. GSFC will manage the mission and provide the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS) instrument.

Space Duct Tape and the Mars Rover

03/11/2011
Paul Mahaffy was interviewed by Wired.com about Space Duct Tape on the next Mars rover

Mahaffy, SAM PI giving local seminar

02/24/2011
Paul Mahaffy will be presenting a seminar at Howard University's Department of Physics and Astronomy on March 30, 2011 at 3:30 p.m. The subject for the seminar is "A New Generation of Science on the Surface of Mars with the Curiosity Rover."

Curiousity's SAM and the search for life on Mars

01/20/2011
In this MSNBC article, Jen Eigenbrode discusses the "molecular fossils" that microorganisms can leave behind.

Did meteorites preordain left-loving life?

01/19/2011
Nature News interviewed Danny Glavin (699) on his research that some carbon rich meteorites are high in left-handed amino acids, while others contain an equal balance between these and their mirror-image counterparts.

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