In February, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) hosted the Chancellor’s Parent Leadership Society (CPLS) Board for their spring meeting, which included a presentation about LASP’s work, students, and history, as well as a tour of the institute’s facilities. LASP began celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2023.
The Parent Leadership Society is a group of donors who serve as university ambassadors and lead the CU Boulder parent community. To kick off the meeting, the new CPLS Board Chairs, Carlos and Marci Hamilton, and Vice Chairs, Chris and Katharine Roth, introduced Dr. Philip P. DiStefano, Chancellor of the University of Colorado Boulder, who last fall announced he will step down this year after holding the position since 2009.
“People often ask me, in my 15 years as Chancellor, what is most memorable,” DiStefano began. “Since we’re here at LASP, I’m going to tell you about a memorable experience that happened in November 2013, when we launched a spacecraft to Mars from Cape Canaveral,” DiStefano said, referring to the launch of the MAVEN mission, for which CU Boulder is the lead PI (principal investigator) institution.
“That spacecraft was carrying experiments by CU undergraduates, along with the CU logo and Ralphie on it,” added DiStefano. “It was very emotional watching that because I thought, this brings together everything that I wanted to do as Chancellor.”
Following the Chancellor’s remarks, Dr. D’Andra Mull, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, updated the board on student affairs and Moneer Greenbaum, Managing Senior Director of Development, presented an update on parent giving. The board then heard presentations on health and wellness research from Rosi Kaiser, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Associate Vice Chancellor Jess Doty, who also serves as the campus Chief Wellness Officer.
CU Students Reach for the Stars
David Malaspina, a LASP research scientist who studies the physics of space plasmas and an Assistant Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, then gave a presentation about student involvement in space science research and exploration at LASP.
In a talk titled, “CU Students Reach for the Stars,” Malaspina noted that CU Boulder operates at the nexus of commercial, government, and academic space research. CU Boulder is one of the top NASA-funded universities in the world, and one of the top five in astronaut alums, with 20 CU Boulder scientists, faculty, and alumni having flown on 52 space missions.
He showed the many ways that students participate in and contribute to LASP’s missions through their work in Mission Operations, Data Systems, Engineering, and Science.
“CU students are involved at every step,” Malaspina told the CPLS Board. “At LASP, students get hands-on experience designing and building instruments, developing new measurement technologies, conducting mission operations, controlling spacecraft, and processing complex data sets.”
Malaspina highlighted some of the Charles A. Barth undergraduate student scholarship recipients, including Lauren Christenson, who is working with LASP researcher Naomi Maruyama to investigate space weather impacts on the Earth’s upper atmosphere caused by solar storms.
Charles A. Barth served as LASP Director from 1965 to 1992, and scholarships in his memory now support both undergraduate and graduate students who are conducting space science research.
“CU truly lets students reach for the stars,” Malaspina concluded.
The presentation was followed by tours of the LASP facilities, including the Mission Operations Center, where Chris Pankratz, Director of Mission Operations and Data Systems, spoke about LASP’s focus on students and its mission of developing the next-generation workforce in aerospace and space science.
“Students are integrally involved in every stage of the missions,” Pankratz said. “They get to see and gain hands-on experience with the full cycle of space science.”
Also present were two student flight controllers—Elie Tulloch, who works on CubeSat missions, and Alana Martinez, who works on the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). Both are juniors in Aerospace Engineering.
“Building the spacecraft, seeing it go up, controlling it, and seeing the data come down is amazing,” Martinez said. “I’m learning so much. Working at LASP has really shown me that this is something that I want to do.”
By Sara Pratt, Senior Communications Specialist
Founded a decade before NASA, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder is on a mission to transform human understanding of the cosmos by pioneering new technologies and approaches to space science. LASP is the only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in our solar system. LASP began celebrating its 75th anniversary in April 2023.
