Sara Russell

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Sara Russell
Russell speaks on The Moon Landings & Cosmic Mineralogy in 2012
Born1966 (age 57–58)
Alma mater
Scientific career
Institutions

Sara Samantha Russell (born 1966) is a professor of planetary sciences and leader of the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, London. She is a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society and of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Early life and education[edit]

Russell was captivated by the Moon landing as a child.[1][2] She studied at the University of Cambridge, where she was introduced to microanalysis by Jim Long.[3] She had started studying natural sciences, but heard that geologists host the best parties, so switched courses.[3] She was inspired to complete a PhD degree in geology after attending a lecture by Colin Pillinger, and moved to the Open University.[3][4] She won the Royal Astronomical Society Keith Runcorn Prize for the best British doctoral thesis in geophysics in 1993.

Career[edit]

Russell completed postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and Smithsonian Institution.[5][6][7] She joined the Natural History Museum in 1998, where she studied protostars and planets.[8] In 2000 she edited the collection Protostars and Planets IV.[9] Russell is leader of the micrometeorite and meteorite collection at the Natural History Museum, London.[10] She has been on three expeditions to Antarctica searching for meteorites.[1][11] She has been awarded the Antarctica Service Medal.[12] She was awarded a Leverhulme Trust grant in 2005.[13] In 2006 she studied the meteorites in the early solar system and the protoplanetary disc.[14]

On behalf of the Natural History Museum, Russell was part of the team which arranged the acquisition of the Ivuna meteorite in 2008.[15][16] In 2009 she published the book Meteorite with Caroline Smith and Gretchen Benedix.[17] She won the Geological Society of London Bigsby Medal in 2010.[18][19] In 2011 Russell took part in an exhibition at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[20] She is a science team member of OSIRIS-REx.[11] She was the initial point of contact in the process by which the Tissint meteorite came to be acquired by the Natural History Museum in 2012.[21] In 2014 she studied Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo Astronauts, finding that the lunar crust did not form from a common source.[22][23]

Russell has studied the origin of water in the inner Solar System with Monica Grady.[24] She published Chondrules in 2018, a book which considers the silicate grains that form in the protoplanetary disk.[25] The eponymous asteroid 5497 Sararussell was named after her. Russell is an advocate for diversity in science.[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b The Natural History Museum (2007-07-20), Sara Russell on travelling to Antarctica | Natural History Museum, retrieved 2018-08-10
  2. ^ "Museum Lives Staging | Natural History Museum". www.nhm.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  3. ^ a b c "The Geological Society of London - 2010 Awards: Citations, Replies". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  4. ^ "1998 Mineralogical Society-Schlumberger Medal" (PDF). Mineralogical Society. 1999-01-07. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  5. ^ Cassidy, William A. (2012-03-29). Meteorites, Ice, and Antarctica: A Personal Account. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139437035.
  6. ^ McCall, Gerald Joseph Home; Bowden, A. J.; Howarth, Richard John (2006). The History of Meteoritics and Key Meteorite Collections: Fireballs, Falls and Finds. Geological Society of London. ISBN 9781862391949.
  7. ^ "Meteorite studies". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  8. ^ Russell, Sara S.; Boss, Alan P. (1998-08-14). "Protostars and Planets". Science. 281 (5379): 932–933. Bibcode:1998Sci...281..932R. doi:10.1126/science.281.5379.932. ISSN 0036-8075. S2CID 4785221.
  9. ^ "The University of Arizona Press : Protostars and Planets IV". 2017-06-16. Archived from the original on 2017-06-16. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  10. ^ Russell, Sara; Grady, Monica M. (2006-01-01). "A history of the meteorite collection at the Natural History Museum, London". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 256 (1): 153–162. Bibcode:2006GSLSP.256..153R. doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.2006.256.01.08. ISSN 0305-8719. S2CID 131227425.
  11. ^ a b "Royal Astronomical Society". www.ras.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  12. ^ Russell, Sara S.; Connolly, Harold C. Jr.; Krot, Alexander N. (2018-06-30). Chondrules: Records of Protoplanetary Disk Processes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108304672.
  13. ^ "The Leverhulme Trust 2005". The Leverhulme Trust. 2005. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  14. ^ Lauretta, Dante S.; McSween, Harry Y. (2006). Meteorites and the Early Solar System II. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816525621.
  15. ^ Sample, Ian (2015-09-22). "Meteorite from birth of solar system to go on display". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  16. ^ "The Geological Society of London - NHM buys new meteorite". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  17. ^ results, search; Russell, Sara; Benedix, Gretchen (2009-09-03). Meteorites (Revised ed.). London: The Natural History Museum. ISBN 9780565092399. ASIN 0565092391.
  18. ^ "The Geological Society of London - Bigsby Medal". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  19. ^ "Society Awards for 2010". Journal of the Geological Society. 167 (5): 841–842. 2010-08-23. Bibcode:2010JGSoc.167..841.. doi:10.1144/0016-76492010-Awa. ISSN 0016-7649. S2CID 219542144.
  20. ^ Murdin, P (2001), "Royal Observatory, Greenwich", The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, IOP Publishing Ltd, p. 4203, Bibcode:2000eaa..bookE4203., doi:10.1888/0333750888/4203, ISBN 978-0333750889
  21. ^ Chang, Kenneth (8 February 2012). "Meteorite From Mars Is at Home in London, After a World Tour". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  22. ^ "Meteorites expose Moon surface formation". Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  23. ^ Russell, Sara S.; Joy, Katherine H.; Jeffries, Teresa E.; Consolmagno, Guy J.; Kearsley, Anton (2014-09-13). "Heterogeneity in lunar anorthosite meteorites: implications for the lunar magma ocean model". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 372 (2024): 20130241. Bibcode:2014RSPTA.37230241R. doi:10.1098/rsta.2013.0241. ISSN 1364-503X. PMC 4128264. PMID 25114312.
  24. ^ Russell, Sara S.; Ballentine, Chris J.; Grady, Monica M. (2017-05-28). "The origin, history and role of water in the evolution of the inner Solar System". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 375 (2094): 20170108. Bibcode:2017RSPTA.37570108R. doi:10.1098/rsta.2017.0108. ISSN 1364-503X. PMC 5394259. PMID 28416731.
  25. ^ Russell, Sara S.; Connolly, Harold C. Jr.; Krot, Alexander N. (2018-07-19). Chondrules: Records of Protoplanetary Disk Processes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108418010.
  26. ^ "NASA experts and maggot races in Science Uncovered at the Natural History Museum | Culture24". www.culture24.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-08-10.