Kiri L. Wagstaff | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Utah (B.S.) Cornell University (Ph.D.) |
Known for | Autonomous exploration AI for space science Mars rovers |
Awards | NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal NASA Group Achievement Award AAAI Fellow (2023) Lew Allen Award |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Planetary science Artificial Intelligence |
Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology |
Doctoral advisor | Claire Cardie |
Kiri Lou Wagstaff is an American computer scientist and planetary scientist whose research involves the use of machine learning in the analysis of data and autonomous control of planetary rovers and other space probes. [1] She is a senior instructor in electrical engineering and computer science at Oregon State University. [2]
Wagstaff was a high school student in Moab, Utah, and attended the University of Utah with the support of a program for women in mathematics and the sciences. [3] After earning a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1997, [2] she went to Cornell University for graduate study in natural language processing, [3] and became part of a team of students who participated in a NASA competition on engineering support for human exploration of Mars. [4] , She earned a master's degree in 2000 and completed her Ph.D. in 2002. [2] Her doctoral dissertation, Intelligent Clustering with Instance-Level Constraints, was supervised by Claire Cardie. [5]
After a year as a postdoctoral researcher in the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, [6] she worked for 20 years as a principal researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [2] During this time she also returned to graduate study for a master's degree in geological sciences from the University of Southern California in 2008, [2] advised by Frank Corsetti, [6] and a master's degree in library and information science from San Jose State University in 2017. [2]
She began teaching at Oregon State University in 2020. [7]
Wagstaff was a recipient of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Lew Allen Award in 2008, "for advancing the performance and application of machine learning methods to onboard and ground-based space science, Earth science and spacecraft engineering". [8] She is a two-time recipient of the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal, in 2012 and 2020, [2] and was elected as an AAAI Fellow in 2023. [9]
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Caltech researchers, the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and administered and managed by the California Institute of Technology.
The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronauts.
Charles Elachi is a Lebanese-American professor (emeritus) of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). From 2001 to 2016 he was the 8th director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and vice president of Caltech.
Bert Gentry Lee is an American scientist, space engineer, and science fiction author. He is chief engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Linda A. Morabito, also known as Linda Kelly, Linda Hyder, and Linda Morabito-Meyer, is the astronomer who discovered volcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter. She made this finding on March 9, 1979, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At the time of her discovery, she was serving as Cognizant Engineer over the Optical Navigation Image Processing System (ONIPS) on the Voyager deep space mission Navigation Team. While performing image processing analysis of a Voyager 1 picture taken for spacecraft navigation, she detected a 270 kilometres (170 mi) tall cloud off the limb of Io. The cloud was of volcanic origin. This was the first time in history that active volcanism was detected off of Earth. Her discovery is considered by some planetary scientists as the largest discovery of the planetary exploration program that has come out of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Morabito is currently an associate professor of astronomy at Victor Valley College. She also authored a memoir, Parallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time.
Donna Lee Shirley is a former manager of Mars Exploration at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is the author of the book Managing Martians: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman's Lifelong Quest to Get to Mars—and of the Team Behind the Space Robot That Has Captured the Imagination of the World.
Ayanna MacCalla Howard is an American roboticist, entrepreneur and educator currently serving as the dean of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. Assuming the post in March 2021, Howard became the first woman to lead the Ohio State College of Engineering.
Pierre Baldi is a distinguished professor of computer science at University of California Irvine and the director of its Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics.
Laurie Leshin is an American scientist and academic administrator serving as the 10th Director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and as Vice President and Bren Professor of Geochemistry and Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology. Leshin's research has focused on geochemistry and space science. Leshin previously served as the 16th president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Ronald Greeley was a Regents’ Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU), the Director of the NASA-ASU Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF), and Principal Investigator of the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory at NASA-Ames Research Center. He was involved with lunar and planetary studies since 1967 and most recently focused his research on understanding planetary surface processes and geologic histories.
Susan G. Finley, a native Californian, has been an employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since January 1958, making her the longest-serving woman in NASA. Two days before Explorer 1 was launched, Finley began her career with the laboratory as a human computer, calculating rocket launch trajectories by hand. She now serves as a subsystem engineer for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). At JPL, she has participated in the exploration of the Moon, the Sun, all the planets, and other bodies in the Solar System.
Lady Diana Trujillo Pomerantz is a Colombian-American aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She currently leads the engineering team at JPL responsible for the robotic arm of the Perseverance rover. On February 18, 2021, Trujillo hosted the first ever Spanish-language NASA transmission of a planetary landing, for the Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
Sarah Milkovich is lead of Science Operations for the Mars 2020 rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was investigation scientist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Farah Alibay is a Canadian systems engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the InSight, Mars Cube One, and Mars 2020 missions.
MiMi Aung is a Burmese-American engineer. Currently, she is director of technical program management for Amazon's Project Kuiper, an initiative to increase broadband internet access through an array of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Aaron Yazzie is a Diné (Navajo) mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work involves planetary sample acquisition and handling. He has worked on the Mars Science Laboratory, InSight, and Mars 2020 missions.
Moogega Cooper is an American astronomer, and the Lead of Planetary Protection for the Mars 2020 Mission and is involved with the InSight Mission. Dr. Cooper also takes part in programs and speaking engagements to encourage young women or and others from underrepresented communities to pursue careers in science and technology.
David Y. Oh is an American spacecraft systems engineer and expert in electric propulsion. Dr. Oh currently works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the NASA Psyche mission chief engineer. Prior to this role he served as the Project Systems Engineering Manager for Psyche. He was also the cross-cutting phase lead and lead flight director for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission and was recognized in popular media for living on Mars time with his family during the month following the landing of the Curiosity rover.
Timothy Canham is an American software engineer. He works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he is the operations lead and former software lead for the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. He resides in Santa Clarita, California.
Nacer E. Chahat is a French Algerian-American engineer and researcher at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory.