Cathy Olkin Principal Scientist Muon Space

Dr. Cathy Olkin is Principal Scientist at Muon Space where she leads the effort to develop a constellation of satellites to detect and monitor fires across the globe. The goal of the mission is to provide fire fighters with high quality and low latency information for the management of fire responses and provide scientists with high time cadence and high spatial resolution data to both model fires and understand the climate impacts.

From 2014 to 2022, Dr. Olkin was the Deputy Principal Investigator of NASA’s Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids which, over 12 years, will visit 7 Trojan asteroids and one main belt asteroid. She worked to ensure that the flight system can achieve the science objectives of the mission including understanding the geology, surface composition, bulk properties, and thermal properties of these asteroids.   

Additionally, Dr. Olkin was an Institute Scientist at Southwest Research Institute where she also served as the Deputy Project Scientist for NASA’s New Horizons mission and was the Instrument Principal Investigator for its Ralph instrument, a color camera and infrared imaging spectrometer. The data from the Ralph instrument provided information on the color and composition of Pluto’s surface including that the large glacier on Pluto is primarily N₂ ice and that seasonal variations drive the distribution of volatile ices on Pluto’s surface. 

Dr. Olkin has a background in aerospace engineering and planetary science. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and Stanford respectively. After working at JPL, she earned a PhD in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from MIT with studies of Triton’s atmosphere from the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and other ground-based facilities. 

She actively mentors the next generation of engineers and scientists through programs like FIRST Robotics and the L’SPACE Academy. Dr. Olkin enjoys sharing the excitement of science through museum lectures, storytelling at the Moth, invited talks to people of all ages and background, and at Comic-Con events.