BECKY GHENT, PHYSICS SUPERSTAR!

After doing an outstanding senior research project, Becky went on to graduate school in physics at Georgia Tech. She earned a Master's degree there in 1994. She then worked for a year as a physics instructor at Gordon College in Barnesville, GA. where students were spoiled by her excellent communication skills. Becky earned a Ph.D. in planetary geophysics from Southern Methodist University in 2002. Her thesis title is: An Analysis of Tectonic Structures in Venusian Crustal Plateaus: Structure, Kinematics, and Numerical Modeling. She then obtained a two-year postdoctoral research position at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC where she studied fractal and other statistical properties of natural surfaces in order to predict how sounding radar (essentially ground penetrating radar from orbit) will interact with the surface of Mars.  Her work will contribute to an Italian sounding radar experiment that should fly on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005.

Here are some spectacular pictures of hot lava Becky took on a geologic field trip to Hawaii:

Update: April, 2006: Becky has accepted a tenure-track professorship in remote sensing at the University of Toronto!

Update: October 2006: Becky operated the largest steerable radio telescope in the world at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV! She used the Green Bank radio telescope to study properties of the lunar surface using reflected radar signals originating from the giant radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.