Jeffrey Moersch, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is on the NASA team working on the Curiosity rover. Moersch has worked on five previous missions to Mars, including the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
Moersch is searching for hydrogen—another ingredient important for life—in the form of water or clay and sulfate minerals. He and the team will use the rover's neutron detector, the same technology oil companies use to sniff out hydrocarbons for drilling holes, to search for hydrogen-bearing materials and other geochemical anomalies in the Martian surface.
Moersch received his bachelor's degree in Physics from Cornell University, a master's degree in geology from Arizona State University, master's degree in astronomy from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Cornell University.For more information, visit http://web.eps.utk.edu/faculty/moersch.html.
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