Dr. Martha S. Hanner is a Senior Research Scientist in the Earth and Space Sciences Division at JPL and the Leader of the Asteroids, Comets, Satellites Research Element. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1963 and received her Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1969. Her main research interests are the study of comets, interstellar grains, and optical properties of small particles. She has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications. She currently conducts an active research program of infrared spectroscopy and imaging of comets at the Palomar and Mauna Kea observatories, in order to learn about the properties of the solid particles released by comets and how they are related to the solid particles in interstellar space and surrounding young stars.
Dr. Hanner has been involved in a number of space missions, beginning with the Pioneer Jupiter probes and the German-American Helios probes in the 1970s. She participated in the European Giotto mission to Comet Halley in 1986. Currently, she is a Co-Investigator for STARDUST and for the Galileo Dust Detection Experiment.