Christine Hartzell

Christine Hartzell is a Minta Martin Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland and the director of ASTRA-UMD, UMD’s newly started center for space exploration research. Her research seeks to elucidate the fundamental physics of granular systems that will enable key space exploration technologies. She is a Participating Scientist on the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, and was involved with the OSIRIS-REx mission and the Janus mission. Asteroid 9319 was named “Hartzell” in recognition of her contributions to the field of asteroid science. Prior joining the faculty at UMD, Dr. Hartzell was a Keck Institute for Space Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech. She completed her PhD in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech.