Professor of Planetary Science, UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences
Dr. Amy Mainzer is a professor of planetary science at UCLA. Her research interests include asteroids and comets; instrumentation for remote sensing; and applications of remote sensing for monitoring invasive species on Earth. She is leading NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, which will carry out a comprehensive survey of asteroids and comets using a dedicated space telescope scheduled for launch in late 2027. She was also the principal investigator of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission, an Earth-orbiting space telescope that searched for Earth-approaching asteroids and comets from 2009-2024.