The science team is responsible for determining the scientific objectives of the Northern Light mission, for the operation of instrumentation during the mission and for the analysis of the data returned from Mars.

The following sections list our team members and their interests in alphabetical order, from O to T.

Professor Colin Pillinger (Co-I, Northern Light Lander, UK Collaborator)
Professor Colin Pillinger is Professor of Planetary Sciences at the Open University, U.K. and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Professor Pillinger is the science lead for the Beagle 2 Mars lander, scheduled for launch on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Mission in June 2003. His research interests include the application of stable isotope and organic analysis to a wide range of planetary, geological and environmental problems through the development of new and novel measurement techniques for lab and space based studies. Professor Pillinger is a member of the Northern Light science team.

Professor Brian R. Pratt
Brian is a sedimentologist and palaeontologist at the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. His sedimentological research focuses on Precambrian and lower Paleozoic marine strata, both carbonate and siliciclastic. He is particularly interested in understanding how organic evolution has changed sediment through time and how these changes may be tracked vicariously via unique sedimentary structures and deformation by earthquake-induced ground motion. In his work on fossils, Brian specializes in ancient benthic communities, combining taxonomy, microstructure, paleobiology and paleoecology to study microbial carbonates, reefs and Cambrian invertebrates, such as trilobites. He is collaborating with Jacques Guigné and Chris Woodworth-Lynas on the possibility of a Mars north polar ocean, specifically to detect a biotic signal in response to possible ice scour on subaqueous sediment surfaces.

Professor Brendan Quine (PI, Northern Light Lander)
Brendan Quine is Director of Space Science for Thoth Technology and Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University. His academic interests include planetary atmospheres, estimation theory and spacecraft-systems engineering. Professor Quine is PI for Northern Light. With Thoth Technology, he will assume overall responsibility for the system and will co-ordinate all phases of the project at all project levels.

Professor Quine has worked for nine years for the spacecraft manufacturer Astrium Ltd. and is experienced with all phases of spacecraft design and manufacture. He has worked on Astrium’s cryogenic cooler program and on the development of navigation and propulsion systems for spacecraft, including SOHO, XMM, INTEGRAL and CLUSTER. During his research at the University of Oxford, and in association with Astrium Ltd., he developed and patented a new instrument to determine spacecraft attitude. The first instrument to use the new approach was recently launched on the European technology-demonstration spacecraft, PROBA.

Professor Benoit Rivard (Co-I, Northern Light Lander Geo-Sciences)
Benoit Rivard is an Associate Professor at the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. His work for Northern Light involves the spectral analysis of geological, landing-site data, focusing on materials that can be linked to the presence of water and, potentially, to fossil records. He is also involved in an investigation of the spectral properties of silica springs deposits as a potential reservoir for fossil life on Mars, and he is exploring the means of detecting these materials from spectral data.

Professor Rivard’s interests have included the use of ground and airborne multispectral remote sensing for lithologic and structural mapping, the infrared characterization of terrestrial materials, the development of methodologies for precise measurement of emissivity, and the analysis of radar data for regional geologic mapping. Much of his current research is driven by the Canadian resource industry and, specifically, by the mining-exploration sector.

Dr. Caroline Roberts (PI, Northern Light Lander Mars Capsule)
Caroline Roberts is President of Thoth Technology. She is responsible for the commercial and proprietary interests of the company and for corporate communications.

Dr. Roberts will be PI for the Mars mission capsule. The capsule will carry an archive of letters to Mars from Canadians.

Professor Doug Schmitt (Co-I, Northern Light Geo-Science Instruments)
Dr. Douglas R. Schmitt is a Professor of Geophysics in the Institute for Geophysical Research, Department of Physics, University of Alberta. Professor Schmitt completed his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Schmitt’s particular areas of expertise include rock mechanics, rock physics, attenuation, anisotrophy, crustal stress, optical interferometry, applied seismology, reservoir monitoring, fracture and seismic wave propogation.

Dr. Mark Sims (PI, Northern Light Environmental Sensors, UK Collaborator)
Dr. Sims is Mission Manager of Beagle 2 (an Exobiology Lander for Mars Express) and a member of the Space Research Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Leicester University, UK. He is also Co-I for Environmental Sensors, Definition, Development, Operations and Data Analysis. Dr. Sims has published 66 articles on Mars and astrobiology. He will be providing the environmental sensors for Northern Light.

Dr. Tom Slanger (Co-I, Northern Light Lander MARES Airglow Camera, US Collaborator)
Dr. Tom Slanger has been at SRI since 1966 and was made an Institute Fellow in 1997. His areas of expertise include studies of atmospheric species in the laboratory, analysis of planetary airglows, energy-transfer reactions in atoms and small molecules, the application of astronomical instruments to atmospheric studies, and the investigation of optically forbidden transitions in small molecules.

Dr. Slanger is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the author of 160 publications in photochemistry, collisional energy transfer, chemistry of the upper atmosphere, and spectroscopy of the terrestrial airglow and that of Venus. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from UCLA (1965). A postdoctoral year was spent at the Centre d’Etudes Nucleaires in Saclay, France.

Professor James Sloan (Co-I, Atmospheric Science)
James Sloan is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. Professor Sloan will provide assistance for the atmospheric components of the mission and is interested in cloud, aerosol and dust measurements, including the determination of size and shape distributions, chemical composition and number densities.

Professor Robert Stewart (Co-I, Northern Light Geo-Science Lead
Rob Stewart is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Calgary and holds a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Stewart’s current professional interests include geophone design, converted-wave seismic analysis, 3-D VSP, geostatistics, geo-archaeology, natural hazard monitoring, planetary geology and seismic characterization of meteorite impacts. He is the geo-science lead for Northern Light.

Professor Stewart is the director of the CREWES Project, an industry-university consortium studying advanced seismic methods supported by 27 companies around the world. He runs his own geophysical company, GENNIX Technology Corp., and has been employed with the Chevron Oil Field Research Company, the Arco Exploration and Production Research Centre, Chevron Geosciences Co. and Veritas Software Ltd. Professor Stewart is a past editor of the Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics. He was awarded the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (CSEG) Medal in 1993 and was President of the CSEG, 1997-98.

Professor Kimberly Strong (Co-PI, Northern Light MARES Airglow Camera)
Kimberly Strong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, University of Toronto. As a member of the Northern Light team, she will contribute her research experience in remote sounding of atmospheric composition from ground-based, balloon-borne and satellite instruments. Professor Strong is PI for MARES (Mars Airglow Remote Sensing). With other members of the MARES science team, led by Dr. Stella Melo, she will develop a CCD imager that will observe gravity waves in the Martian atmosphere using airglow. The feasibility of measuring nightglow with the lander’s UV-visible spectrometer will also be investigated

Professor Strong is PI for the MANTRA balloon project, the OH Measurements from Space (OHMS) concept study, and the University of Toronto Atmospheric Observatory (TAO), which includes both UV-visible and Fourier transform infrared spectrometers. She is also a Co-I on the Canadian Odin/OSIRIS Aeronomy Science Team and for the ACE-FTS and MAESTRO satellite instruments on SCISAT-1.

Professor Michael Taylor (Co-I, Northern Light MARES Airglow Camera, US Collaborator)
Professor Michael Taylor is a Research Professor in the Space Dynamics Laboratory and Physics Department, Utah State University. Since moving to the USA in 1991, his primary research activities have focussed on the development and use of novel imaging instrumentation (a CEDAR Class 1 All-Sky, Monochromatic Nightglow Imager and an OH/O2 Mesospheric Temperature Mapper) and associated digital analysis techniques for remote sensing studies of the upper atmosphere. These include mesospheric and thermospheric airglow emissions, atmospheric gravity waves, noctilucent clouds, equatorial and mid-latitude F region dynamics and mid- and high latitude aurora. He has also used these systems to investigate the spectral and spatial signatures of lightning-induced middle atmospheric phenomena, termed "sprites," "halos" and "elves," and he has employed high-resolution, video-imaging techniques to investigate Leonid meteor-ablation signatures.

Professor Taylor’s research interests include satellite measurements of atmospheric gravity waves and polar mesospheric clouds. He is co-investigator on the NASA "WAVES" Mid-Explorer mission-feasibility study to investigate global gravity-wave energetics and dynamics and co-investigator on the NASA "Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere" (AIM) Small Explorer Mission, Phase-A study. Professor Taylor has published over 60 papers.

Professor Boyd Tolton (Co-I, Atmospheric Science)
Boyd Tolton is a chief scientist for Synodon Ltd. His research expertise lies in the field of experimental remote sensing of atmospheres, and he has been involved in the design, development, calibration and validation of satellite-, airplane- and ground-based remote sensing instruments. He is keenly interested in the application of remote sensing to our understanding of the Earth’s carbon cycle, and he is PI of a concept study on how to measure carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. As a member of the Northern Light team, Professor Tolton is particularly interested in remote sensing of the Martian atmosphere, to understand how and why the climate systems of Mars differ from the those of Earth.