Meenakshi Wadhwa

Regents Professor Wadhwa is a Foundation Professor and the director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She is also the principal scientist for the Mars Sample Return mission with NASA. Wadhwa researches the processes that form the planetary bodies in the solar system. Her research group has developed novel approaches for using highly precise isotope analyses to measure the time scales involved in the formation of planetary bodies and study the abundance and origins of water in the solar system. Her research has transformed the fields of cosmochemistry, solar system chronology, meteoritics and trace element geochemistry. She is a recipient of the J. Lawrence Smith medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023. LINK TO NAS: https://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20011249.html