Dr. Susan Sakimoto completed a B.A. in Geology from Whitman College, and an M.A. in Earth and Planetary Sciences and a Ph.D. in Geophysics from Johns Hopkins University. She was a National Research Council Postdoc and Visiting Research Scientist (through USRA and UMBC) at NASA/Goddard Space flight Center for ten years.
Susan has 30+ years of experience in terrestrial volcanology and planetary geophysics, particularly in terrestrial fieldwork and remote sensing, Mars laser altimetry mission work, and thermal and computational fluid dynamics modeling of volcanic, hydraulic, and impact processes. She combines 2-D and 3-D thermal and flow models with fieldwork and experiments to model volcanic and other planetary flow and cooling processes.
Susan's teaching experience includes high school science, graduate planetary science at the Johns Hopkins' Master of Science in Education Program, and graduate and undergrad volcanology, geophysics and civil engineering as a professor at Notre Dame, and assorted K-12 science enrichment programs, including low and high power rocketry. She also advises grad students through the University at Buffalo.