Nininger Student Travel Award Winners Present at LPSC 2026
Congratulations to our four 2026 Nininger Student Travel Award winners, Nidhi Nirwan, Lana Tilke, Eliana Perlman and Grady Robbins, presenting at LPSC.
Nidhi Nirwan is a senior in Barrett, the undergraduate Honors College, working with Prof. Thomas Sharp, Dr. Axel Wittmann, and Prof. Meenakshi Wadhwa. She is currently exploring the use of ilmenite as a diagnostic shock indicator in the Martian basaltic shergottite, NWA 17234. For her LPSC presentation, she used electron backscatter diffraction and Raman spectroscopy to find the possible presence of high-pressure polymorphs of ilmenite and to understand the microtextures that reveal shock metamorphism in NWA 17234. She attended LPSC last year to present the new characterization of NWA 17234 and is now returning to share her work!
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1961.pdf
Lana Tilke is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the School of Earth and Space Exploration studying planetary magnetism under the advisement of Prof. Joseph O’Rourke. She models the thermal and magnetic evolution of moons in the outer Solar System, with a focus on their potential to possess active, intrinsic magnetic fields. At LPSC, she will present two projects: the potential for undiscovered dynamos at Neptune’s largest moon Triton and Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io. Her research may influence future mission design, considering that the discovery of a hitherto-unknown magnetic field may complicate future magnetometry-based searches for subsurface oceans and elucidate these planetary bodies’ interiors and histories.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1662.pdf
Eliana Perlman is a second-year PhD.student working Profs. Ariel Anbar and Mikhail Zolotov. At LPSC, she will be presenting work that seeks to quantify the gaseous alkali metals, trace metals, and metalloids, and SO2 released during the volcanism that formed Venus’ current landscape. To do this, she collated previously collected data on lava volumes, and masses of metal volatiles and SO2 emitted during the recent eruptions of four analog volcanoes. With these data, she calculated the average volatile element emission rate in kg/m3 lava and mg/kg SO2 for each volcano, and then applied the results to Venus’ volcanic landscapes using lava volumes and an atmospheric SO2 mass from the literature.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1955.pdf
Grady Robbins is a 1st year Geological Sciences PhD student working with Prof. Jim Bell and the Mars 2020 team on Martian surface geology in Jezero crater, a crater paleolake. He is characterizing broken and crushed rock interiors and subsurface soils from the Jezero crater floor to the rim using multiple instruments aboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, including Mastcam-Z and SuperCam, for mineralogy and geochemistry. These rock interiors and subsurface soils preserve evidence of their formation and evolution better than their natural surface counterparts. At LPSC, he will present his progress and resulting applications to Mars past and present environments.
