Kurt Retherford

Education:

  • Ph.D. Physics & Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 2002
  • M.A. Physics & Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 1998
  • B.S. Applied Math, Engineering & Physics, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1994

Email: kretherford@swri.edu

Phone: 210-522-3809

Professional Links: Google Scholar and LinkedIn

Missions: 

Research Areas:

  • Principal Investigator (PI) of the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS), to be flown on NASA’s Europa mission
  • Deputy PI of the UVS on ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission
  • PI of the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) UV spectrograph on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
  • UV detector and instrument tech development
  • Hubble Space Telescope Guest Investigator program PI and Co-Investigator (CoI)
  • James Webb space Telescope (JWST) Guest Investigator program Co-Investigator (CoI)
  • Co-Investigator (CoI) on Mars Express SPICAM
  • New Horizons Pluto-Alice instrument team member, Pluto Encounter Atmospheres team member, and Jupiter Encounter Science Team champion for satellite atmospheres investigations
  • Leader of a laboratory study of far-UV reflectance properties of lunar soils and icy volatiles
  • Deep-UV/Enhanced Raman spectrograph, UV detector, and instrument tech developments

Current Graduate Students:

Past Graduate Students:

For more information on Planetary Science: SwRI Planetary Science and Planetary Science Industries