NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship - Investigating Mars' CO2 Cycle and Seasonal Polar Caps Dynamics Using Radar Sounding

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on understanding Mars' climate by characterizing the seasonal and long-term dynamics of Mars' CO2 cycle and polar caps using radar sounding data. The project will utilize radar data from instruments such as SHARAD aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to quantify seasonal deposition and sublimation of CO2 ice, revealing thickness and volume changes over time. The research will provide direct insights into the magnitude and variability of mass exchange between the surface and atmosphere, addressing critical knowledge gaps about the Martian volatile cycle. The analysis will extend to interannual and long-term variations, enabling detection of potential secular trends in polar cap structure. This research position is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under the advisement of Dr. Gregor Steinbruegge.