Freedom

Mohini Jodhpurkar is a Ph.D. student with Jim Bell at Arizona State University and a collaborator on the Perseverance science team. Growing up a Star Trek fan, she’s always thought being a science officer on the Enterprise would be her dream job – so being involved with the mission feels like an exciting step towards that! She received her B.S. in Geology from the College of William and Mary, before spending a year as a researcher at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. There, she worked on a variety of lunar and Martian projects and is continuing work on those two bodies at ASU. In particular, she loves the idea of synthesizing orbital data with observations the rover makes on the ground to build a better understanding of deltaic processes across the Martian surface and learn more about the planet's geologic history! When not focusing on planetary research, Mohini loves spending her time reading and writing fantasy and science fiction, playing one of several instruments, and exploring the outdoors!

As a member of the Mastcam-Z team, she had the opportunity to analyze the images our instrument gets down from the surface to look for geological features of interest that might help us better understand what kinds of rocks we're driving through, which in turn allow scientists to interpret how they were formed. These observations also helped her come up with ideas for what the instrument or the rover should explore next. Also, when she participated in rover-level operations, she was able to sit in conference meetings and document the science decisions that are made throughout the planning timeline to share with the rest of the science team.

In this podcast, Mohini is sharing her high-level views on the following questions-

Do you think there is water on Mars - how is it going to help in the evolution of science - how are these efforts useful for human- society There are so many kids in India who love to become scientists, and do research work for NASA - what is your advice for them?  Even a tiny creature - an ant has its mind – do you think earth or mars has a mind? How is Ph.D. student life – how does your day look like?

Find more details at https://mars.nasa.gov/people/profile/?id=23373