Gabbie Ledesma (’20), a geology major, has been awarded an Iowa Space Grant Consortium undergraduate research fellowship for 2019-2020. This will provide her will a stipend to do independent research with Dr. Elizabeth Swanner. She will continue her investigations of Manganese enrichments in lake sediments in order to better understand Manganese enrichments in the former lakebed in Gale Crater, Mars. This follows her summer 2019 internship at Los Alamos National Laboratory with Dr. Nina Lanza where she investigated lake samples using LIBS – laser induced breakdown spectroscopy. The instrument she used is set up to simulate the analytical environment on Mars, and is the same technique as ChemCam on NASA’s Curiosity Rover. She also received a Dean’s High Impact Award in Summer of 2018 from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for her research. Congratulations, Gabbie!
For her student profile, visit the homepage of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium.