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DR. AMARA GRAPS
Amara Graps,
Ph.D. is an
astronomer in Rome. As a long distance
associate researcher with the
Planetary Science Institute (PSI), and as
a researcher at the
Institute of Interplanetary Space Physics (IFSI),
she examines circum/interplanetary dust charging and dynamics and the
origin of water on Earth, while supporting the space missions (Cassini,
Rosetta, Dawn) that carry INAF's infrared spectrometers. Sometimes she
also writes popular astronomy and scientific computing articles for
trade newsletters and magazines.
Amara was formerly a
computational
physicist consultant as well as a Stanford employee, writing image
processing and helioseismic software and WWW solar education materials
(Stanford, CA); and writing wavelet software. Her work experience,
primarily in astronomy, astrophysics, and planetary science research,
was gained from work at IFSI, MPI-K, NASA-Ames, Stanford University,
the
University of Colorado and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition,
she consulted for engineering, computer, and medical companies in
Heidelberg and the Silicon Valley working on numerical analysis,
technical writing, and WWW site projects.
In her ESA and NASA projects, she has analyzed data from the Ulysses
spacecraft, GORID/Express spacecraft, Cassini spacecraft, Galileo
spacecraft, SOHO spacecraft, NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, NASA's
ER-2 aircraft, the Voyager 2 spacecraft, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter
spacecraft, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), the Space
Shuttle's SpaceLab 2, and ground-based telescopes in Hawaii,
California,
and Arizona. The data includes dust from Jupiter's magnetosphere and
Earth's geostationary orbit, the Sun, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, Comet
Halley, Supernova 1987a, Venus, Mars, Io, Mercury, the Moon, Saturn's
and Uranus' rings, asteroids, Earth's atmosphere, protostars, molecular
clouds, galaxies, novas, main-sequence stars, and the exhaust-cloud
around the Space Shuttle.
In July 2001, she completed her PhD in Physics from Universitaet
Heidelberg (Germany) and the Max Planck Institut fuer Kernphysik,
researching the charged dust dynamics of the Jovian dust streams.
Her previous formal education occurred in conjunction with her jobs:
She earned her B.S. in Physics in 1984 from the University of
California, Irvine while she was working at JPL, and her M.S. in
Physics (w/Computational Physics option) in 1991 from San Jose State
University while she was associated with NASA Ames.
Her hobbies include bicycle touring, volcanos, Cremona violins,
photography, writing, watercolor painting, studying philosophy, and
learning the Italian and Latvian languages. She is very interested
in helping people learn about the cultural interdependent nature of
people on our planet.
Read the
full list of her publications!
Print bio!
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