Shannon Curry is a planetary physicist and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Mars Scout mission

MAVEN MAVEN is a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars to study the loss of that planet's atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution" w ...

(Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution). Curry is an associate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences (APS) Department as well as a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Prior to this, she served as the Deputy Assistant Director of Planetary Science at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Education

Curry received her Bachelors of Science from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

in astrophysics. Following, she received a fellowship through NASA's Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP) and completed her Ph.D at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in 2013; her thesis was titled "Test Particle Analysis of High Altitude Ion Transport and Escape on Mars".

Research and career

Curry's research focus is on terrestrial planetary atmospheres, primarily in atmospheric escape and dynamics at

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

and other weakly magnetized bodies. She is involved in instrument development and mission concept development for future flight exploration of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. Her research uses statistics, applied mathematics, modeling and machine learning in order to better understand spacecraft observations of the solar system. Before completing her Ph.D., she was a systems engineer at

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

. In 2020, Curry participated in two Planetary Mission Concept Studies as part of NASA's preparations for the 2023 Planetary Science Decadal Survey: MOSAIC (a mission concept at Mars) and the Venus Flagship Mission Concept. Curry also leads the science campaigns for the Venus gravity assists performed by the

Parker Solar Probe The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 to make observations of the Stellar corona, Sun's outer corona. It used repeated Gravity assist, gravity assists from ...

spacecraft and is a collaborator on NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) program. She is the Project Scientist on the

SIMPLEx In geometry, a simplex (plural: simplexes or simplices) is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimensions. The simplex is so-named because it represents the simplest possible polytope in any given dimension. ...

mission EscaPADE, which is a spacecraft mission to Mars consisting of two spacecraft set to launch in 2024 to study the Martian magnetosphere. In 2021, she succeeded Bruce Jakosky as the principal investigator for the

mission, which launched in 2013 and orbits Mars to study the loss of atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. In 2022, Curry began serving on NASA's Planetary Advisory Committee.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Curry, Shannon NASA astrophysicists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of California, Berkeley faculty American planetary scientists Tufts University alumni University of Michigan alumni American women scientists 21st-century American women