Where are we now? Greg Brennecka

Catch up with Center alumni through this periodic feature!

Dr. Greg Brennecka graduated with a PhD from ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration in 2011. His dissertation research was focused on using isotopes of the element uranium to better understand the history of the early Solar System and how oxygen levels have changed over time in Earth’s oceans (Uranium Isotope Variations in Nature: Mechanisms, Applications, and Implications)

After postdoctoral research appointments at ASU and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Greg received the prestigious Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to study meteorites at the Institut für Planetologie in Münster, Germany from 2014-2019. His group, known as the Solar System Forensics group, focused on the earliest epoch of Solar System formation and graduated two PhD students in cosmochemistry, Drs. Quinn Shollenberger and Jan Render.

Following his time in Germany, Greg returned to Lawrence Livermore, where he is currently a Staff Scientist working in the Chemical & Isotopic Signatures group doing a combination of nuclear forensics and cosmochemical research. Additionally, he leads multiple international engagements focused on global cooperation in nuclear forensics.

Greg’s job permits him to work on a variety of interesting samples day to day, from the oldest solids formed in the Solar System, rocks returned from the Apollo missions, to nuclear fuel rods. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles to date and recently published a popular science book about the inordinate influence of meteorites on Earth and human culture (Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong).