因为她正在实现她的深空研究梦想.

从她记事起, 香农希巴德, 春秋国旅的17他一直对宇宙着迷. 在俄亥俄州立大学读本科的时候, 她在像南极洲这样寒冷的地方工作, 奥地利阿尔卑斯山, 挪威和新西兰的南阿尔卑斯山, and became interested in the relationship between ice on Earth and ice on Mars. 当她研究研究生院的时候, 她寻找这方面的专家, and came across the work of Temple’s Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Science Alexandra Davatzes. 

“她的工作与冰无关, 但我联系了她,因为她曾在HiRISE工作过, 一颗火星卫星上的高分辨率相机,希巴德说. “我们是在Skype上认识的,我们真的很投缘.”

Shannon Hibbard ' 17的照片

香农·希巴德,17岁

美国国家航空航天局博士后项目研究员

“支持系统在学术界非常重要, 有人支持你会让你振作起来,推动你前进.”

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投入工作

Davatzes convinced Hibbard to enroll in the master’s program in geological sciences.

亿德体育, Hibbard primarily examined the geochemistry of Precambrian rocks that reveal important clues about impact cratering processes, 行星地质学的基本主题. 

“我们研究了3英寸的前寒武纪岩石.240亿年前, which at that point Earth was at a very early age of just over 1 billion years old,希巴德解释道. “The conditions back then were very different than today so it felt like I was studying a whole other planet.”

一直以来, 她利用每一个机会独立研究地球和火星上的冰, 利用课堂上的任何项目来拓展她的知识.

她回顾了自己在亿德体育读研究生的时光, where she conducted her own research and worked as a teaching assistant, 这是一个非常严谨但又富有成效的时期.

“坦普尔大学把我培养成了一名科学家,”希巴德说. “因为这是一个较小的项目, you really get to know all of the professors and students and see what everyone is doing up close.”

不朽的导师

第一年之后的那个夏天, Hibbard traveled to South Africa with Davatzes to conduct field work on the Precambrian rocks found in the Barberton Greenstone Belt and collect samples from the remnants of a 3.240亿年前的陨石撞击事件. 

希巴德在两年内完成了她的课程, but subsequently was offered a prestigious internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at NASA. In order to take advantage of the opportunity she had to be considered a current student: Davatzes paid her tuition to ensure Hibbard could stay on at Temple for an additional semester and participate in the NASA program. That generous support ended up dictating the trajectory of Hibbard’s future.

“支持系统在学术界是非常关键的,”希巴德说. “Having people rooting for you will lift you up and propel you forward. 阿历克斯·达瓦茨当然为我做到了这一点.” 

At JPL, Hibbard worked with Matthew Golombek, known for his work on Mars landing sites. “碰巧他让我参加了一个与冰有关的项目, characterizing potential sites for the Red Dragon mission that SpaceX was going to have,她解释道.

远离世界的机会

SpaceX的任务从未实现, but it laid the foundation for Hibbard’s PhD work in planetary geology at University of Western Ontario using the Canadian High Arctic as an analogue for Mars. In 2021, 她成功地完成了论文答辩,并搬到了帕萨迪纳, 加州, to return to JPL as a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow working again with Golombek. 

她继续在博士研究的基础上进行研究, studying buried ice and frozen ground landforms that are prevalent on both Earth and Mars, looking for statistically significant relationships between the surface and subsurface that can give scientists insight as to where and how shallow the ice on Mars might be.

Her biggest career highlight to date came when this past year she was selected to be a part of a measurement definition team for a new preliminary international Mars satellite mission, 国际火星冰绘图仪, 美国国家航空航天局的联合合作, 加拿大航天局, 日本宇宙航空研究开发机构和意大利航天局.

“我被选中的事实非常令人兴奋, 我感到非常自豪和荣幸能成为团队的一员. 在我去坦普尔大学之前, I knew I wanted to work on ice and frozen ground processes on Earth and Mars and to one day work at JPL,”她说。. “Seeing it become a reality and being able to use this knowledge to help find human landing sites on Mars is truly out of this world.”

费城唯一的公共研究机构

作为一个大的, 公立研究型大学, exploration and discovery of new information is embedded into all disciplines. Temple students can experience research in many ways through coursework, 教授指导和独立项目.