Briony Horgan

Welcome to the Horgan Research Group!

Our group seeks to understand the surface geology of Mars, the Moon, and the Earth through satellite remote sensing, rover missions, field work, and lab work. There are research opportunities in our lab for motivated graduate and undergraduate students. Please email me for more information about potential research topics and projects. 

Our group welcomes students and researchers regardless of race, religion, gender identification, sexual orientation, age, or disability status. We recognize that our scientific and educational missions are strengthened by contributions from diverse perspectives, and that it is our responsibility to create a positive, inclusive, and supportive group culture that benefits everyone. 

Exploring spectacular geology in New Mexico, 2025. (top left) Hiking silicic lavas in Valles Caldera, (top middle) exploring carbonate travertines at Soda Dam, (top right) looking down on paleosols and diagenetic features in the Bisti Badlands, (bottom) and the group across the VNIR spectrum using our hyperspectral camera.

Horgan group out in the world! (Left) Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 2023. (Right) Ultimate Mars 2020 Landing Site Workshop, 2018. Jazzed for Jezero!

Field work all over the world! (Left) Brad Garcznyski swims with the stromatolites at our Jezero analog in Lake Salda, Turkey in 2019. (middle) Briony, Amanda Rudolph, and Hunter Vannier pose with our Mission Control Space Services rover in central Iceland in 2021, where we studied rover navigation techniques and sedimentary processes. (Right) James Haber grabs a sample of ancient salty and oxidized lake sediments at our Gale crater analog site in southern Utah in 2021.

Posing on palagonite (and moody album cover version) in Red Mountain, San Francisco Volcanic Field, AZ, during the March 2019 EAPS field trip. Left to right: Brad Garczynski (PhD student), Marie McBride (PhD student), Amanda Rudolph (PhD student), James Haber (PhD student), Bryan Howl (undergrad RA), Prakhar Sinha (PhD student), Briony Horgan, Noel Scudder (PhD student).

Choose your weapon! August 2016 during fieldwork studying glacial weathering on the Three Sisters volcanic complex. Left to right, top row: Liz Rampe (NASA/JSC), Allie Rutledge (postdoc), Briony Horgan, Marie McBride (PhD student), Sheridan Ackiss (PhD student). Bottom row: Becky Smith (postdoc), Noel Scudder (PhD student).

News

• (2025) Congratulations to PhD student Margaret Deahn for winning a NASA FINESST Fellowship!
• (2025) Congratulations to PhD student Dr. Hunter Vannier for defending his dissertation!
• (2025) Congratulations to Postdoc Adrian Broz for his successful NASA Solar System Workings proposal!
• (2025) Congratulations to PhD student Thanos Klidaras for winning an LPI Career Development Award!
• (2024) Congratulations to Postdoc Lingqi Zeng for his successful NASA Mars Data Analysis Program proposal!