Role
Principal Investigator
Biography
Dr. Kerri Donaldson Hanna received her B.S. in Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology and then her M.S. and Ph.D. in Geological Sciences at Brown University. After her Ph.D., she spent 5.5 years at the University of Oxford working as a postdoctoral researcher and UK Space Agency Aurora Research fellow within the Planetary Surfaces and Experiments group. Dr. Donaldson Hanna joined the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida in March 2019 as an assistant professor.
Kerri’s research focuses on better understanding (1) the formation and evolution of airless bodies within our Solar System, (2) the distribution of planetary materials across the Solar System, and (3) the thermal infrared behavior of fine particulate materials. Her research combines spacecraft and telescopic remote sensing observations of airless bodies with laboratory measurements of analog materials utilizing bespoke environment chambers. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of Lunar-VISE and a Co-Investigator on several space missions including the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, L-CIRiS, and Lunar Trailblazer, and was a participating scientist on the OSIRIS-REx mission.