Keck Institute for Space Studies

06/13/2024

Huge congratulations to KISS Affiliates, Sorina Lupu and Marlini Simoes, for their selection to participate in the Future Leaders in Aerospace Symposium hosted by Stanford University. We are so proud of you!

Graduate student Sorina Lupu and postdoctoral scholar research associates Xinyi Huang and Marlini Simoes were selected to attend the 2024 Future Leaders in Aerospace Symposium at Stanford University in May.

06/12/2024

Missed last week’s lecture from Dr. Jim Green on the “Origins and Evolution of Life in Space and Time”?

The recording is now on our YouTube channel - check it out here: https://youtu.be/3pCQGiJ1jgU. Thank you to Dr. Green for his phenomenal lecture to a packed lecture hall!

05/13/2024

Join us on Wednesday, June 5th as Dr. James Green, former NASA Chief Scientist, discusses the origins and evolution of life in space and time. For more information, visit https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2024_Green.html.

05/09/2024

Yesterday we welcomed Clay Mowry to the Keck Institute for Space Studies for a fireside chat with our KISS affiliates. Thank you to Clay for sharing your eventful journey through the space industry and advice for early career space professionals!

04/24/2024

We were thrilled to welcome Maggie Yancey, Entrepreneurship Lead at NASA’s Science and Space Technology Mission Directorates to KISS! Our KISS affiliates enjoyed discussing NASA opportunities over lunch – thanks for joining us!

04/17/2024

The Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Harriet Brettle (M.S. ’18) as Executive Director.

Harriet most recently served as the Head of Market Analysis and Business Intelligence at the European Space Agency (ESA) within the Connectivity & Secure Communications directorate. Before joining ESA, Harriet held the position of Head of Business Analysis at Astroscale, a startup focused on creating sustainable space services and mitigating space debris. She also served as Chair of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), a global non-profit that supports students and young professionals to connect to the wider space industry. Harriet has a master’s degree in Planetary Science from Caltech.

Harriet takes over the day-to-day leadership of KISS, including direction of planning, operations, and engagement with campus, JPL, and external partners. https://kiss.caltech.edu/impact/Brettle.html

For more information about the Keck Institute for Space Studies and its work, please visit https://kiss.caltech.edu/index.html

06/08/2023

Send your name on 's mission launching in October.

You're invited to to Jupiter's moon Europa by signing a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón that will travel aboard NASA's spacecraft

04/26/2023

Congratulations to KISS Affiliate Niyati Desai who won the Caltech 3 Minute Thesis Competition last night! Hats off to Caltech's University Librarian Kara Whatley and her team for hosting such an inspiring event.

10/11/2022

Watch the videos of the talks presented at the recent Keck Institute for Space Studies short course “Ocean World Microhabitats - Targeting and Life Detection Techniques” on September 19, 2022.

Speakers:
- Dr. Mike Malaska (JPL) - “Ocean World Microhabitats 101”
- Prof. Jeff Marlow (Boston University) - “Microbes of Extreme Environments”
- Dr. Kris Zacny (Honeybee Robotics) - “Robotic Acquisition Techniques”
- Dr. Mary Beth Wilhelm (NASA ARC) - “Geochemistry, Biosignature and Life Detection Techniques”

https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/short_courses/microhabitats.html

09/27/2022

Congratulations to KISS Affiliate Sorina Lupu who was one of the eight young professionals chosen for the 2022-2023 Future Space Leaders Foundation (FSLF) Grant Program. Intended for U.S. graduate students and young professionals who are pursuing space-related careers, the program provides grants for participation in the 72nd International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

09/13/2022

We just posted the video from Prof. Fiona Harrison's KISS lecture last week entitled "The Science of NuSTAR - 10 Years of Exploring the Energetic Universe." You can check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOcWrheC16Q and read a recent Caltech Magazine highlight on NuSTAR here: https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/nustar-telescope-nasa

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array ( NuSTAR ), led by Caltech and managed by JPL, turned 10 years old in June. This space telescope detects high-energy X-ray light and studies some of the most energetic objects and processes in the universe. The mission’s principal investigator is Fion...

05/02/2022

Check out this 2-hour webinar on "A Year of Innovation and Action to Reduce Negative Impacts from Fires" May 11 from 10-NOON (Pacific) https://tinyurl.com/year-of-fire-innovation and see outcomes from our 2021 workshop:
https://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/wildfires/wildfires.html

Hosted by Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS), California Institute of Technology Instructors: Dr. Natasha Stavros CIRES, University of Colorado Boulder Kendra McLauchlan, National Science Foundation Sean Triplett, USFS/National Interagency Fire Center Paul Steblein, Joint Fire Science Program G...

04/21/2022

On April 19th, KISS Affiliate Aida Behmard won the Caltech Three Minute Thesis Final Event in an exciting competition with fourteen talented finalists. She won the $3000 grand prize for her presentation "Planets on a Galactic Scale". Check out a video of the event here: https://www.library.caltech.edu/three-minute-thesis-2022. Image credit: Ling Lim

03/21/2022

The 2022 Caltech Space Challenge has begun. Good luck to the Explorer and Voyager teams as they attempt to design a sample return mission to Titan... in only 5 days. Talk about overachievers!

03/07/2022

Gwynne Shotwell is rocking Ramo Auditorium right now... and KISS Affiliates Niyati Desai (podium) and Mike O'Connell (guru in charge of Q&A) are helping make it possible. Thanks team!

02/02/2022

JPL's new director Dr. Laurie Leshin made her first address to JPL today! Congratulations Laurie and welcome back to the Caltech universe.

12/10/2021

You can rewatch the NOW POSTED recording of Dr. Nikole Lewis's awesome lecture from this past Tuesday!

https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Lewis.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcrfTTRN4C8

This lecture will discuss the methods used to detect exoplanets and study them in detail.

12/07/2021

It's not too late to join us for TONIGHT'S 5pm PST webinar "Probing Worlds Beyond our Solar System" with Dr. Nikole Lewis!
Register here to receive the Zoom link:
https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Lewis.html

This lecture will discuss the methods used to detect exoplanets and study them in detail.

11/11/2021

See the latest results from our 2020 KISS study “COVID-19: Identifying Unique Opportunities for Earth System Science”
Press release: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere
Article: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/46/e2109481118

The goal of this workshop is to quickly assemble an interdisciplinary team of scientists, researchers and engineers to address the impact of COVID-19 response on the climate system, evaluate the system recovery over the next 1 - 5 years, formulate the hypotheses, and identify the measurements that c...

11/05/2021

Dr. Elachi's virtual lecture is now posted! Check it out here if you missed it (it was GREAT). https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Elachi.html

11/02/2021

It's not too late to join us for TONIGHT's 5pm pacific webinar with Dr. Charles Elachi (Caltech Professor Emeritus and JPL Director from 2001-2016) about Earth Observation with Spaceborne Radars!

Register here for the webinar link: https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Elachi.html

10/21/2021

Join us for a webinar on November 2nd at 5pm with Dr. Charles Elachi (Caltech Professor and JPL Director from 2001-2016) as we celebrate 40 years of observing the Earth using spaceborne radars.

Register here: https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Elachi.html

This talk will cover the history of how a team of young Caltech/JPL researchers transformed the field of Earth Observation with Spaceborne Radars which dramatically expanded our ability to map and monitor the changes on our Planet.

10/01/2021

Kudos to KISS Affiliate Niyati Desai who was recently highlighted for her perspective on collaboration in "The Caltech Effect: Stories from the Breakthrough Campaign."

https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/magazine/the-caltech-effect-october-2021/

09/23/2021

Did you see our most recent webinar about Interstellar Comets with the incredible Dr. Karen Meech? Check out the recording, now available on our website and Youtube!

https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Meech.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPwBVQ8D0wY

This talk will summarize what we know about our first two interstellar visitors, how we know it, and what they are, and will present some new ways we might explore these intriguing objects in the future.

09/22/2021

Today is Caltech Giving Day and if you love our lecture series or our KISS Affiliate program or our study programs - we'd welcome your help in supporting our important work! If you are donating, please use this link https://www.givingday.caltech.edu/ and then under designation, select other, then put in Keck Institute for Space Studies. Thanks for your help!

Join Caltech Giving Day on September 21 to 22, 2021 to unite for science and student success!

09/16/2021

Congratulations to Prof. Gregg Hallinan as he has been named one of the winners of a 2022 New Horizons Prize in Physics "for leadership in laying foundations for electromagnetic observations of sources of gravitational waves, and leadership in extracting rich information from the first observed collision of two neutron stars". Greg co-led our KISS study on "Planetary Magnetic Fields: Planetary Interiors and Habitability."
https://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/magnetic/magnetic.html

09/09/2021

What do we know about our first two interstellar visitors? Join us on Tuesday, September 14th at 5pm pacific to hear from Dr. Karen Meech!

Register here: https://kiss.caltech.edu/lectures/2021_Meech.html

This talk will summarize what we know about our first two interstellar visitors, how we know it, and what they are, and will present some new ways we might explore these intriguing objects in the future.

08/16/2021

Congratulations to Saul Teukolsky for being named the co-awardee of the Dirac Medal and Prize of the International Center for Theoretical Physics for his contributions in predicting the properties of gravitational waves that emerge from the collisions of black holes. Saul was a team co-lead for our study "The Architecture of LISA Science Analysis: Imagining the Future."
https://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/LISA/LISA.html

06/24/2021

A KISS-inspired balloon experiment detected a California earthquake – next stop, Venus? Read the press release here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-balloon-detects-california-earthquake-next-stop-venus and the KISS final report from 2015 on Probing the Interior Structure of Venus" here:https://kiss.caltech.edu/final_reports/Venus_final_report.pdf

06/11/2021

Our "Next-Generation Planetary Geodesy" Part I Workshop closes today, and here are some valuable short course lectures in which you may be interested!

https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/short_courses/geodesy.html

In this short course, we will discuss the prospects for giant leaps that could be enabled by modern geodetic observations beyond the Earth-Moon system.