The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) was a joint mission of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Twin satellites took detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field anomalies from its launch in March 2002 to the end of its science mission in October 2017. The two satellites were sometimes called Tom and Jerry,a nod to the famous cartoon. The GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) is a continuation of the mission on near-identical hardware,launched in May 2018. On March 19,2024,NASA announced that the successor to GRACE-FO would be Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Continuity (GRACE-C),to be launched in or after 2028.
Joan Feynman was an American astrophysicist and space physicist. She made contributions to the study of solar wind particles and fields,sun-Earth relations,and magnetospheric physics. In particular,Feynman was known for developing an understanding of the origin of auroras. She was also known for creating a model that predicts the number of high-energy particles likely to hit a spacecraft over its lifetime,and for uncovering a method for predicting sunspot cycles.
Rebecca Oppenheimer is an American astrophysicist and one of four curator/professors in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Oppenheimer is a comparative exoplanetary scientist. She investigates planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Her optics laboratory is the birthplace of a number of new astronomical instruments designed to tackle the problem of directly seeing and taking spectra of nearby solar systems with exoplanets and studying their composition,with the ultimate goal of finding life outside the solar system.
Christina Kahrl is one of the co-founders of Baseball Prospectus. She is the former executive editor of the think tank's website,BaseballProspectus.com,the former managing editor for their annual publication,former writer and editor for ESPN.com,and is currently sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Inez Fung is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of California,Berkeley,jointly appointed in the department of earth and planetary science and the department of environmental science,policy and management. She is also the co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.
Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes,remote sensing,atmospheric modeling,polar climates,air-sea interactions,climate models,and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She was a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee,published over a hundred scientific papers,and co-edited several major works. Curry retired from academia in 2017 at age 63,coinciding with her public climate change skepticism.
Yvonne Madelaine Brill was a Canadian American rocket and jet propulsion engineer. She is responsible for inventing the Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster (EHT/Resistojet),a fuel-efficient rocket thruster that keeps today’s satellites in orbit,and holds a patent for its invention. During her career she was involved in a broad range of national space programs in the United States,including NASA and the International Maritime Satellite Organization.
Penelope Whetton was a climatologist and an expert in regional climate change projections due to global warming and in the impacts of those changes. Her primary scientific focus was Australia.
Joshua K. Willis is an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His area of expertise is current sea level rise,as well as measuring ocean temperatures. When sea level fell from 2010 to 2011,Willis stated that this was due to an unusually large La Niña transferring more rainfall over land rather than over the ocean as usually happens. In addition,Willis is the project scientist for Jason-3.
Tourmaline is an American artist,filmmaker,activist,editor,and writer. She is a transgender woman who identifies as queer. Tourmaline is most notable for her work in transgender activism and economic justice,through her work with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project,Critical Resistance and Queers for Economic Justice. She is based in New York City.
Jessica Andrea Watkins is an American NASA astronaut,geologist,aquanaut and former international rugby player. Watkins was announced as the first Black woman who completed an International Space Station long-term mission in April 2022. On June 9,2022,at 7:38 UTC,she became the African American woman with the most time in space,surpassing Stephanie Wilson's 42 day,23 hour and 46 minute record.
Kate Marvel is a climate scientist and science writer based in New York City. She is a senior scientist at Project Drawdown and was formerly an associate research scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia Engineering's Department of Applied Physics and Mathematics.
Peter Kalmus is an American scientist and writer based in Altadena,California. He is a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an associate project scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science &Engineering.
Diane L. Evans is a geologist and the former Director of Earth Science and Technology Directorate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her research areas have included sea-level rise,climate change,and tectonics. In 2019,she was recognized by Congressman Adam Schiff for her contributions in his district.
Gretchen Keppel-Aleks is an American scientist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the College of Engineering's department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering. She primarily focuses on Earth's climate and the effects of greenhouse gasses on Earth's atmosphere. Keppel-Aleks has been named a Kavli Fellow by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Jean O'Brien Dickey was an American scientist. Dickey was a pioneering geodesist and particle physicist with expertise in Earth rotation. After receiving a PhD from Rutgers University,she spent much of her career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Between 1994 and 1996,she served as President of the American Geophysical Union's geodesy section,the first woman to hold that position.
Nadine Unger is a Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Exeter. She has studied the role of human activities and forests on the Earth's climate.
Fadji Zaouna Maina is a Nigerien Earth scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She was previously working in the field of hydrogeology at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where she used computational model using supercomputers to study the effects of climate change on water sustainability and predict future needs. Her research has demonstrated that wildfire in California counterintuitively increase the water availability in the watersheds,as the barren lands impact the snowpack dynamics. She also studies the potential effects of drought in African Sahel region,advocating for a holistic response including girl education and family planning,increase in agricultural production and local security.
Shannon Gabrielle Valley is an American climate scientist and policy advisor. She is based at Georgia Tech,where she studies the climate history of planet Earth. She worked as a liaison between the White House and NASA Headquarters for the Obama administration. In 2020 Valley was appointed to Joe Biden's NASA transition team.
Kennda Lian Lynch is an American astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist who studies polyextremophiles. She has primarily been affiliated with NASA. She identifies environments on Earth with characteristics that may be similar to environments on other planets,and creates models that help identify characteristics that would indicate an environment might host life. Lynch also identifies what biosignatures might look like on other planets. Much of Lynch's research on analog environments has taken place in the Pilot Valley Basin in the Great Salt Desert of northwestern Utah,U.S. Her work in that paleolake basin informed the landing location of NASA's Perseverance Rover mission—at another paleolake basin called Jezero Crater. Jim Green,Chief Scientist at NASA,called Lynch "a perfect expert to be involved in the Perseverance rover." Helping to select the proper landing site for NASA's first crewed mission to Mars in 2035 is another of Lynch's projects. Lynch has appeared in multiple television series,as well as The New York Times,Nature,Scientific American,and Popular Science. Cell Press designated Lynch one of the most inspiring Black scientists in the United States.
