Bethany Ehlmann

Bethany Ehlmann is a scientist and explorer who seeks to understand our place in the cosmos and build a positive future for humanity. She is a Professor of Planetary Science at Caltech and Associate Director of Caltech’s Keck Institute for Space Studies. Her research group studies planetary geology, the evolution of habitable environments, and the search for life. She is active in formulation of missions to ocean worlds, asteroids, and Venus, leads NASA's Lunar Trailblazer mission and is a member of the science teams of the Perseverance, Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Dawn mission during its Ceres phase, and the Earth-orbiting EMIT imaging spectrometer. Ehlmann is also active in science policy and outreach. She serves as Board President of the non-profit Planetary Society and is author of Dr. E's Super Stellar Solar System with National Geographic. Awards include recognition as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, a Mineralogical Society of America Distinguished Lecturer, American Geophysical Union Macelwane medalist, American Astronomical Society Planetary Science Division Urey prize recipient, and COSPAR Zeldovich medalist.