I grew up and went to school in a small town called Coventry in the small state of Rhode Island. I have been interested in space and computers and the inner workings of everything for as long as I can remember. Two specific experiences are directly related to what I’m doing today: First, I was active and eventually a leader in my school’s photography club, with a particular emphasis on landscapes and space photography (sound familiar?). And second, I worked weekends at my dad’s auto salvage yard, taking apart cars and getting to tinker with all kinds of cool mechanical devices. It’s not hard to see how my early interests in photography and machinery lead me on a direct path to Athena and Pancam! After high school I went to Caltech and got my B.S. double majoring in Planetary Science and Aeronautics, and then went to grad school for my M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Hawaii. In Hawaii I was able to spend many long nights atop Mauna Kea volcano using the telescopes there to study mostly Mars and the Moon, and using instruments and methods that are directly applicable to the experiments we’ll be performing on the Mars Exploration Rovers and other Mars missions. More details on my background can be found at: http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/resume.html
My initial background and training is in Mars telescopic observations. My thesis work used Mars images and spectra obtained from Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, and I have also been involved in Mars telescope observing from observatories in France, California, and Wyoming.
The whole mission is extraordinary, but my favorite part so far was getting to install the Pancam calibration target, also know as the "Mars Sundial" on one of the rovers while it was being assembled at Cape Canaveral.
