The ARES Team
The ARES Team

Kimberly Allums
As Advanced Curation Project Manager, Kimberly Allums has supported the Mars 2020 mission for curation Mars Contamination Knowledge (CK) sample receiving and storage, curation cleanroom laboratory setup and curation archival activities.

Eve Berger
Eve Berger, an organic geo- and cosmochemist, is a collaborator on the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument. She will support the SHERLOC science team during instrument operations and assist with the interpretation of SHERLOC data and analysis of analog samples at JSC.

Aaron Burton
Aaron Burton is a co-investigator on the SHERLOC instrument, and a member of the Mars 2020 science team. His role on the mission is to apply expertise on the analysis of organic materials in geologic samples to help characterize organic signatures that the Perseverance rover detects on Mars, in addition to helping with rover operations. He is also the NASA lab manager of the Soluble Organics in Astromaterials Laboratory at NASA JSC with an extensive background in the analysis of extraterrestrial organics found in astromaterial samples.

Michael Calaway
Michael Calaway is the Curation Project Lead for Mars 2020 and MSR Campaign at JSC. In his role, he supported the selection and curation of the mission’s CK collection. He also served as the contamination control lead for the SHERLOC Cal Target. Mike is an expert in pristine containment technologies and serves on the team tasked with evaluating technical requirements for the future Mars Sample Receiving Facility.

Allie Fox
Allie Fox is a collaborator on the SHERLOC instrument onboard the Perseverance rover. Allie performs mission operations as both a Campaign Documentarian assisting with the long-term planning for the rover and a SHERLOC payload uplink lead supporting the day-to-day spectroscopy activities for SHERLOC. She is involved in analyzing SHERLOC data and helps with data interpretation through relevant experimental and modeling studies.

Marc Fries
Marc Fries is the lead scientist for the Analogue Complimentary Raman for Operations oN Mars (ACRONM) instrument, a deep-UV Raman instrument analogous to the SHERLOC instrument on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. He is also a Co-Investigator on SHERLOC. Along with Jacobs colleague Ryan Jakubek, he will assemble a mineralogy, organics, and CK spectral database for use by the SHERLOC instrument and provide science and spectral interpretation support for Mars 2020.

Trevor Graff
Collaborator Trevor Graff is the Project Manager of the SHERLOC Calibration Target aboard the Mars 2020 rover. Trevor led the multidisciplinary team of engineers and scientists that designed, assembled, tested, and delivered the SHERLOC Calibration Target.

Nikole Haney
Nikole Haney is a collaborator on SHERLOC and is the contract lab manager of the Spectroscopy and Magnetics Lab. She will be involved in work with the ACRONM instrument which will be an analogue for the SHERLOC Instrument on Mars 2020. She will support the utilization of the Mars Analogue Sample Collection in the Spectroscopy and Magnetics Lab to develop databases for use in interpreting mission data, for quick-turnaround interrogation of instrument issues and science questions, and to support mission operations through testing of instrument response and other parameters.

Andrea Harrington
Andrea Harrington is the Mars Sample Return Curation Lead. She and her team have worked closely with the Mars 2020 mission management and Mars 2020 Contamination Control leads at NASA JPL to select and curate the mission’s CK collection. The CK collection will support sample science for the Mars Sample Return Campaign. Mars 2020 represents the first leg of that campaign. Andi is a resident expert in pristine containment technologies and serves on the team tasked with evaluating technical requirements for the future Mars Sample Receiving Facility.

Ryan Jakubek
Ryan Jakubek is a collaborating scientist on the SHERLOC Raman and Luminescence instrument. Along with NASA colleague Fries, he will assemble a mineralogy, organics, and CK spectral database for use by the SHERLOC instrument and provide science and spectral interpretation support for Mars 2020.

Carina Lee
Carina Lee is a collaborator on the SHERLOC team and a member of the Biosignatures Working Group. She is interested in the preservation and detection of organics in macromolecular matrices and understanding the reaction mechanisms by which organics are incorporated and released during preservation and analysis. She is a science payload uplink lead for SHERLOC surface operations.

Francis McCubbin
Francis is a collaborator on the SHERLOC Instrument team as a liaison between the Mars 2020 team and Geocaching HQ. He helped to coordinate the inclusion of the first interplanetary geocaching trackable, which has been discovered by over 75,000 geocachers so far. He has also been heavily involved with Return Sample Science Activities for the Mars Sample Return Campaign, and Mars 2020 represents the first leg of that campaign.

Dick Morris
Collaborator Dick Morris is associated with the ACRONM instrument, which is a laboratory analogue to the deep-UV Raman instrument (SHERLOC) onboard the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance. Dick is also the NASA lab manager of the Spectroscopy and Magnetics Lab. He and colleague Nikole Haney will provide and analyze well-characterized geologic samples from the ARES Mars Analogue Sample Collection on ACRONM.

Aaron Regberg
Aaron Regberg is the Planetary Protection Lead for Johnson Space Center. He works with the curation team to collect and curate biological CK samples that will be used to distinguish potential Martian biosignatures from terrestrial contamination. He is also a member of the second Mars Sample Return Science Planning Group (MSPG-2) that is creating the scientific and engineering requirements for the laboratories that will be built to receive and study these samples.

Justin Simon
Justin Simon is a Return Sample Science Participating Scientist. He actively contributes to mission planning and mission science helping to ensure that the rover will encounter the most compelling outcrop locations where in situ observations and samples can be obtained to test current science hypotheses. During operations he selects and evaluates proximal and remote science targets that satisfy campaign science goals and assists tactical science operations. As a Campaign Implementation Return Sample Scientist he contributes to campaign discussions and strategic decisions, especially those related to upcoming sampling needs. As a Tactical Return Sample Scientist he advises the Science Team and Rover Planners on sampling/caching during tactical planning.

Michael Thorpe
Michael Thorpe is the Mars Sample Return scientist at Jacobs/NASA JSC and works with the curation team at ARES to house the Mars 2020 CK samples. Mike is also a member of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team and is excited to continue exploring the surface of Mars with the science returned from both the Curiosity Perseverance rovers.

The SHERLOC Calibration Target Build Team
The Mars 2020 SHERLOC Calibration Target Team designed, assembled, tested, and delivered the first ever spaceflight hardware at the Johnson Space Center that will fly to the surface of Mars. This team of scientists and engineers demonstrated a truly multidisciplinary approach in the integrated development of this unique hardware. The calibration target’s primary objectives are to calibrate the robotic arm-mounted SHERLOC Instrument on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover that uses specialized spectrometers, a laser, and a camera to search for organics and minerals that may be signs of past microbial life on Mars. Additionally, the calibration target hosts a special experiment to study the effects of the Martian environment on advanced space suit materials, as well as serves numerous education and public outreach interests. Over the course of two years, this dynamic team rose to every challenge and ultimately delivered a one-of-a-kind piece of spaceflight hardware.
The Mars 2020 Mission
The Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover launched on July 30th, 2020 on a one-way trip to Jezero crater, Mars. The primary science objective of the Mars 2020 mission is to search for evidence of past life on Mars.