Who I Am

I am a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I do research in planetary science and teach courses in planetary science and geology. It's really a fun job. I always get to do something new and interesting, whether it's finding out something about Mars or learning to understand the Earth better. One of the things I've discovered is that, even though everybody can enjoy the scenery in the mountains or at the beach, it's so much more fun when you can understand how they formed.

I'm also an investigator on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft mission, which gets to Mars in September 1997. Although I didn't build any of the instruments, my role as an "interdisciplinary scientist" is to look at data from all of the instruments and to make sure that none of the exciting science falls through the cracks. I get to take the broader view of Mars science, rather than focusing on a single instrument. So far, all I've been doing is going to endless meetings and talking with the other scientists about what the interesting data will be. When we get to Mars, though, I'll get to look at the most interesting problems.