Francesca DeMeo, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will give a talk titled, "Asteroids as Records of Solar System History", at 11 a.m. on Thursday, 25 February 2016, in the Greenewalt Lecture Hall as part of DTM's Weekly Seminar Series.
DeMeo received her Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from the Observatoire de Paris in 2010. Her field of expertise is understanding the surface compositions of asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects through visible and near-infrared spectroscopic measurements. Because asteroids are the remnants of solar system formation and the leftover building blocks of the planets, studying their composition and distribution reveals the conditions of solar system formation and provides evidence of the dynamical evolution since formation.
Coffee, tea, and a continental breakfast will be served before the lecture at 10:30 a.m.