Planetary Science
People
Faculty Graduate Students Postdocs Alumni
Current Postdocs
Nicolas Bott, Postdoc
Nicolas spent the major part of his curriculum in France, where he was born. He received a BS in Fundamental Physics in 2014 from the Université Paris-Sud. Passionate about astrophysics since the high school, he specialized in planetary science before a PhD about Mercury’s surface at the Laboratoire d’Études Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA) in Meudon, France. At Purdue, he analyzes the microstructural and chemical alterations caused by both ions irradiation and pulsed-laser irradiation on Mercury analogs samples to investigate the space weathering occurring at the surface of the innermost planet of our Solar system. Nicolas likes biking, watching sports, and playing video games.
Jun Du, Postdoc
Jun Du was born and grew up in Hefei, Anhui and Nanjing, Jiangsu in eastern China. He was fascinated with the sky and the universe since he was a kid, so later he chose to study remote sensing at Chengdu University of Technology in Chengdu, Sichuan. After he received his bachelor's degree in 2013, he joined the Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory at Peking University in Beijing and began to work on the surface processes on the Moon. From 2017 to 2018, he worked as a jointly-supervised student at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France. After he earned his doctoral degree from China and France in 2019, he became a research associate at the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In late 2021, he finally made it to Purdue in the U.S., where he will be studying the topographic degradation of lunar craters. Jun enjoys traveling, watching sports games and YouTube channels in his leisure time.
Kristel Izquierdo, Postdoc
Kristel got her PhD from the University of Maryland in 2020 where she studied the distribution of density in the deep lunar interior. She joined Mike Sori and Ali Bramson’s groups as a postdoc in 2021. She loves all planetary geophysics research and currently focuses on shallow lunar and Martian processes. Specifically, she works on impact-induced porosity, magmatic intrusions and cryptomaria of the Moon and spiral trough migration models of Mars. Kristel enjoys traveling (Mount Hua in China pictured on the left), playing volleyball and spending time with her dogs.
Andrea Rajšić, Postdoc
Andrea Rajšić was born in Belgrade, Serbia. She obtained her BSc and MSc degree at University of Belgrade, where she focused on structural geology and tectonics. She did her PhD in Planetary Science at Curtin University, Western Australia. During her PhD, she was a part of NASA’s InSight Science team. She used numerical modeling (iSALE-2D shock physics code) of small impacts on Mars to get better understanding of Martian uppermost crust. Andrea joined Dr. Brandon Johnson’s group at Purdue in April 2022. As a Postdoc, she aims to understand the rock weakening processes during crater formation on the Moon and Earth, using numerical modeling technics. When she is not modeling craters, Andrea enjoys fine arts, hiking, and studying feminist and gender theory.