Shannon Curry is the

Principal Investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

of the NASA Mars Scout mission

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

. She is a planetary physicist and the Deputy Assistant Director of Planetary Science at the

Space Sciences Laboratory The Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) of the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1959, the laboratory is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus. It has developed and continues t ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Education

Curry received her Bachelors of Science from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

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 , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

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 and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

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 System Capitalization 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 "Solar ...

. 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. In 2020, Curry participated in two Planetary Mission Concept Studies as part of NASA's preparations for the 2023

Planetary Science Decadal Survey The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation.National Academy of Sciences, National Acade ...

: 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 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii ...

spacecraft. She is the Project Scientist on the Phase-A/B SIMPLEX mission ESCAPADE and a collaborator on NASA’s

Nexus for Exoplanet System Science The Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) initiative is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) virtual institute designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the search for life on exoplanets. Led by the Ames Resear ...

(NExSS) program. On August 31, she became the Principal Investigator of NASA's

mission.

References

External links

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