Graduate Students

Madera, Alissa

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  • Position: Ph.D. Student
  • Email: am1505@eps.rutgers.edu
  • Office: Wright Labs Room 202C
  • Research Interests: Lunar Petrology, Geochemistry, Sample Science, Remote Sensing
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I am a  Ph.D. student studying under Dr. Juliane Gross. My research focuses onPicture of the NearSide of the Moon the petrology and geochemistry of lunar samples, both meteoritic and returned, in order to better understand lunar geologic evolution through space and time. In particular, I am interested in the formation of the lunar crust in respect to unique feldspathic suites, such as the lunar Mg-suite, and the thermal evolution of Moon reflected by mare basalt volcanism. To do this, I use a interdisciplinary approach of sample and data science with programming and remote sensing. The analytical instruments I utilize in my research are electron microprobe analysis (EPMA), laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectroscopy (LA-ICP-MS), and micro fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (micro-FTIR). For data science and programming,  I mainly use the python programming language and am currently developing data-reduction notebooks for EPMA anlyses (coming soon). For remote sensing, I use ESRI ArcGIS Pro software, as well as the python geospatial and informatics  (GIS) packages Rasterio, Gdal, and Geopandas. 

Research Interests:

Lunar geologic evolution, petrology, geochemistry, sample science, remote sensing

Abstracts:

Madera, A., & Gross, J. (2021). Provenance of Lunar Basaltic Meteorite Northwest Africa 8632 and Related Meteorites. 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, #2686

Madera, A., & Gross, J. (2022). Lunar-Sample-Provenance (LSP) Program: Determining the Potential Source Regions of Lunar Basaltic Meteorites. 53nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, #2823