Christine Knudson Applies Earthly Skills to Mars Study

Name: Christine Knudson

Title: Geologist

Formal Job Classification: Research Assistant

Organization: Planetary Environments Laboratory, Science Directorate (Code 699)

Christine Knudson is a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She began graduate school in August 2012, the same month that NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars. "It is very exciting to be part of the rover team and to be involved in an active Mars mission," she says. "On days when we're downlinking science data and I'm on shift, I am one of the first people to see data from an experiment done on Mars!"
Courtesy of Christine Knudsen

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?

I am a geologist doing both laboratory and field work, primarily focusing on Mars analog research. I work on the Curiosity rover as part of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument team.

Why did you become a geologist?

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