Alumni Spotlight: Lizeth Magaña

What she does

As a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), my work focuses on the surfaces of planets and moons. Most of my current work involves studying the surface of Earth’s moon.

I’m currently a team member on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission and study the Moon’s south pole. I focus on permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), which remain at extremely low temperatures over geologically long time scales. This enables the retention and accumulation of ice. This ice is important from a scientific perspective but also from a resource utilization perspective, as it could potentially be used during missions. To investigate these ice populations, I utilize observations from several LRO instruments, including an ultraviolet spectrometer, thermal radiometer, and radar instrument.

I also study regolith, which is the layer of dust and fragmented rock that covers the surface of the Moon. In particular, I study how light is polarized when it interacts with the surface. We do this by studying regolith analogs—material that is similar to what we would find on the Moon—in the lab, where we can control for grain size and shape, as well as lighting conditions. Understanding the polarization response of different materials is important in characterizing the surfaces of airless bodies such as the Moon and asteroids.

Lastly, I study the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan, the target of NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly mission. I’m trying to understand how river channels are formed at midlatitudes. I utilize radar observations from NASA’s Cassini mission to map existing channels and derive morphological information and models to understand the parameters which reproduce observational data.

How she got there

As a high school sophomore in a general biology course, I was required to write a research paper on “anything I found interesting,” as long as it was science related. The freedom to explore different science fields helped me to narrow my interest in STEM, and I ended up writing the research paper on astronomical topics. But my interest in astronomy didn’t end there.

I decided to major in physics in college, given the strong dependence of astronomy on physics. As an undergraduate at Emporia State, I had the chance to attend a Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP), where I discovered the exciting field of planetary science while talking to people in the poster hall. It was during this poster session that I decided to be a planetary scientist rather than an astronomer.

Best part of her job

My favorite parts of work are the freedom to focus my research efforts on what I find the most interesting and traveling to conferences to share my research with other scientists—in particular, traveling internationally to places such as Switzerland and Scotland.

What I find the most challenging is balancing multiple research projects and not running off to start a new project whenever an exciting research opportunity presents itself.

Her advice for physics and astronomy students

Always ask for the help you need, including from classmates, from professors during office hours, and from test administrators, if you need accommodations