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Marek Slipski

Photo of Marek Slipski

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109

Phone:

(818) 393-4828

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Planetary And Exoplanetary Atmospheres

Biography

Marek Slipski's research focuses on the past and present climate of Mars, the evolution of its atmosphere, and the coupling of the lower and upper atmosphere. Marek earned a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester. He earned his PhD from the University of Colorado, where he modeled the evolution of argon isotope ratios in Mars’ atmosphere and studied the structure of the thermosphere using observations from MAVEN. As a postdoc at JPL, Marek's work focused on using Mars Climate Sounder observations to characterize the distribution of Martian mesospheric clouds and investigate the role gravity waves play in cloud formation. He has participated in the JPL Planetary Science Summer School and the NASA Frontier Development Program. Marek is the lead scientist of the Cloudspotting on Mars citizen science project.

Education

  • PhD Geophysics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • B.S. Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester

Professional Experience

  • Research Scientist, JPL (2023­–present)
  • JPL Postdoctoral Fellow (2022–2023)
  • NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at JPL (2019–2022)
  • Research Scientist, LASP (2019)
  • Graduate Research Assistant, University of Colorado Boulder, LASP (2013–2019)

Research Interests

  • Atmospheric evolution
  • Climate and habitability of Mars
  • Lower-middle-upper atmospheric coupling
  • Mesospheric clouds
  • Dust storms

Selected Awards

  • NASA Group Achievement Award, Mars 2020 Council of Atmospheres (2023)
  • NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow (2019)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award, MAVEN Science Team (2018, 2016)
  • NASA JPL Planetary Science Summer School (2016)
  • NASA MEPAG Student Travel Grant (2014)
  • NAI Summer School in Astrobiology (2014)

Selected Publications

  1. Slipski, M., Kleinböhl, A., Dillmann, S., Reimuller, J., Wronkiewicz, M., Doran, G. (2023). “The Cloudspotting on Mars citizen science project: Seasonal and spatial cloud distributions observed by the Mars Climate Sounder”, Icarus, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115777.
  2. Piqueux, S., Kass, D. M., Kleinböhl, A., Slipski, M., Hayne, P.O., McCleese, D. J., Schofield, J. T., Heavens, N. (2023). “Mars thermal inertia and surface temperatures by the Mars Climate Sounder.” Icarus, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115851.
  3. Slipski, M., Kleinböhl, A., Tirsch, D., Kminek, G., et al. (2023). “The radiometric environment for Mars limb observations by the Mars Sample Return Earth Orbiter.” Advances in Space Research, 72, 9, 4048-4063, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2023.07.019.
  4. Slipski, M., Kleinboehl, A., Kass, D. M. (2022). Role of thermal tides and gravity waves in Mars equatorial mesospheric cloud formation revealed by Mars Climate Sounder observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2022GL100607.
  5. Tirsch, D., Slipski, M., Kleinboehl, A., Kminek, G., and Cloud Tiger Team. (2022). MSR/ERO Cloud Tiger Team Report. ESA-NASA Technical Report.
  6. Slipski, M., Jakosky, B., Benna, M., Elrod, M., Mahaffy, P., Kass, D., Stone, S., Yelle, R. (2018). Variability of Martian Turbopause Altitudes. Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, 123, 2939-2957.
  7. Jakosky, B. M., Brain, D., Chaffin, M., Curry, S., Deighan, J., Grebowsky, J., ... Slipski, M., ... & Zurek, R. (2018). Loss of the Martian atmosphere to space: Present-day loss rates determined from MAVEN observations and integrated loss through time. Icarus, 315, 146-157.
  8. Elder, C., Bramson, A., Blum, L., Chilton, H., Chopra, A., Chu, C., Das, A., Davis, A., Delgado, A., Fulton,J., Jozwiak, L., Khayat, A., Landis, M., Molaro, J., Slipski, M., Valencia, S., Watkins, J., Young, C., Budney,C., Mitchell K. (2017). OCEANUS: A high science return Uranus orbiter with a low-cost instrument suite. Acta Astronautica.
  9. Jakosky, B. , Slipski, M., Benna, M., Mahaffy, P., Elrod, M., Yelle, R., Stone, S., Alsaeed, N. (2017). Mars atmospheric history derived from upper-atmosphere measurements of 38Ar/36Ar. Science, 355(6332), 1408-1410.
  10. Slipski, M., and Jakosky, B. M. (2016). Argon isotopes as tracers for martian atmospheric loss. Icarus, 272, 212-227.