UA Undergraduate Mines Data from Mars Curiosity Rover
A UA Engineering undergraduate student from the University of Arizona is part of a team of researchers from around the world working on the NASA Curiosity rover mission.
Gordon Downs is the only undergraduate at the UA assigned by the Mars Science Laboratory science team as a collaborator. Researchers are working to determine if Mars ever was habitable, or ever exhibited an environment that could have been capable of supporting microbial life. In addition to Downs, eight researchers and graduate students from UA are contributing to the project.
Downs, who is double majoring in mathematics and electrical and computer engineering, has been working with a team at the UA for about a year, developing new ways to analyze data from the CheMin instrument on Curiosity.
It’s a testament to my education at the University of Arizona that an undergrad can have the opportunity to contribute to such significant science. I feel really lucky!”