As an outdoor rock climber and backpacker, I’ve always had an interest in how the formations I explore on were made. Space exploration brings researchers from different countries and backgrounds together in pursuit of a common goal to benefit humanity. I would like to use my knowledge and experience to contribute to humanity’s dream of being able to boldly go where no one has gone before. However, though space may be “the final frontier,” we are still stewards of this Earth. I am also interested in taking my many skills from working on planetary sciences equipment and teaching in different universities, to applying them for use in environmental surveying, weather monitoring, planetary protection, and education of the next generation.
Prior to attending ASU, UNM, and Chico State, my background consisted mainly of assisting in automotive repair. My parents own their own automotive repair business, so since I was able to walk I’ve been around the automotive industry. From my father I’ve learned hundreds of skills from shingling rooftops to soldering electronic circuits, from pouring concrete to gas welding. I am an avid rock climber, backpacker, runner, photographer, musician, baker, cook, writer, and artist in my limited spare time. I am very passionate about exploring the world around me and exploring worlds beyond our Earth. I am also passionate about education, having taught at state, private, and community colleges while pursing my PhD, I enjoy learning new techniques to educate diverse groups of people.
I graduated in 2022 with my PhD from Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. I worked with Dr. Craig Hardgrove and Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, doing research on nuclear processes related to planetary science.
The photo above is of me (left) and my friend Addie Ford (right) making parking lot coffee in the morning in Bishop, CA before heading out to rock climb in Owen’s River Gorge. Photo by Ashley Rose.
Awards
NASA SHINE Training Program
Dec 2022 – Space Health Impacts for the NASA Experience under NSPIRES
Space Health Impacts for the NASA Experience (SHINE) is designed as a virtual training program targeted to graduate students, postdocs, research scientists, early career investigators and potential new investigators to learn about the relevant scientific elements of the Human Research Program (HRP). The 6 month course includes formal didactic lectures covering essential learning material along with more informal interactive coffee hours to facilitate networking with space radiation thought leaders.
ASU NASA SciAct Affiliate Award
Dec 2022 – ASU/NASA SMD Community of Practice for Education (NASA SCoPE)
AGU/SciAct Affiliate travel funding award, up to $1,671/person, is a one time opportunity intended to foster engagement of these new early career scientists with the SciAct community. Award is meant to fund attendance to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2022 conference.
Teaching Excellence Award
Dec 2021 – ASU Graduate & Professional Student Association
The Teaching Excellence Award (TEA) recognizes graduate and professional students that exemplify excellence in teaching across all ASU campuses. The award aims at fostering and rewarding efficient and successful teaching through peer-reviewer evaluations. Winners of the Teaching Excellence Award receive a $750 prize, GPSA-endorsed certificate for Teaching Excellence, recognition on GPSA website and GPSA newsletter.
ASU SESE First Year Fellowship
Aug 2017 – ASU School of Earth & Space Exploration
Proposed an interdisciplinary experimental project for my first year at ASU. The project has since branched into multiple projects, including work happening at LLNL and GSFC, these will be highlighted in multiple chapters of my dissertation.
5th Place in TCS Women’s Intermediate Ropes Climbing
Jun 2015 – Touchstone Climbing Series
Competition of more than 2,500 individual competitors, ranked in the second highest tier (intermediate) out of more than 500 female competitors.
Silver & Bronze Girl Scout Awards
May 2004 – Girl Scouts of America, SF Bay Area
Community service awards in girl-scouting.
Publications/Presentations/Press
Dissertation/Thesis
L. E. Heffern, Strange New Worlds: Development of Active Nuclear Technologies and Techniques for Planetary Science Applications. PhD Dissertation. Arizona State University. School of Earth and Space Exploration, 2022.
L. E. Heffern, Ionization Chamber Design, Development, and Testing for the UNM Fission Fragment Spectrometer. MS Thesis. University of New Mexico. Dept. of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, May 2015.
Papers
S. Dibb, C. Hardgrove, J. Lightholder, L. Heffern, B. Ehresmann, “Observed correlation between local topography and passive neutron measurements from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover,” Earth & Space Sciences, manuscript accepted with minor revisions resubmission July 2024.
M Burks, S Friedrich, J Goldsten, L Heffern, et al., “Measuring the surface abundance of iron and nickel on the asteroid (16) Psyche in the presence of large solar particle events,” Planetary and Space Science 240, 105832, January 2024.
L. E. Heffern, C. J. Hardgrove, A. Parsons, E. B. Johnson, R. Starr, G. Stoddard, R. E. Blakeley, T. Prettyman, T. S. J. Gabriel, H. Barnaby, J. Christian, C. Tate, A. Martin, J. Moersch. “Active neutron interrogation experiments and simulation verification using the SIngle-scintillator Neutron and Gamma-Ray spectrometer (SINGR) for geosciences,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, December 21, 2021.
M. T. Burks, O. B. Drury, J. O. Goldsten, L. B. Hagler, L.E. Heffern, N. R. Hines, G. B. Kim, D. J. Lawrence, K. E. Nelson, P. N. Peplowski, Z. W. Yokley, “GeMini: A High-Resolution, Low-Resources, Gamma-Ray Spectrometer for Planetary Science Applications,” Space Sciences Review, 15 Oct 2020.
C. Hardgrove, R. Starr, I. Lazbin, A. Babuscia, B. Roebuck, J. DuBois, N. Strubel, A. Colaprete, D. Drake, E. Johnson, L. Heffern, et al., “The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper CubeSat Mission,” in IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 54-69, 22 April 2020, doi: 10.1109/MAES.2019.2950747.
P. N. Peplowski, M. Burks, J. O. Goldsten, S. Fix, L. E. Heffern, D. J. Lawrence, Z. W. Yokley, “Radiation damage and annealing of three coaxial n-type germanium detectors: Preparation for spaceflight missions to asteroid 16 Psyche and Mars’ moon Phobos,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Volume 942, 21 October 2019.
K. Meierbachtol, F. Tovesson, D. Shields, C. Arnold, R. Blakeley, T. Bredeweg, M. Devlin, A.A. Hecht, L.E. Heffern, J. Jorgenson, A. Laptev, D. Mader, J.M. O׳Donnell, A. Sierk, M. White, “The SPIDER fission fragment spectrometer for fission product yield measurements,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, , Volume 788, 11 July 2015.
Presentations
L.E.Heffern, C.J. Hardgrove, M.E. Landis, “SigmaNuPy: A Semi-Open-Source Python Toolkit for Planetary Nuclear Instrument Sensitivity Assessment using MCNP,” Presentation #1399696, AGU 2023.
C.J. Hardgrove, T.H. Prettyman, R.D. Starr, L.E. Heffern, E.B. Johnson, et. al., “Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) Mission, Launch and Early Operations,” P45A-05, AGU 2022.
L.E. Heffern, C.J. Hardgrove, A. Parsons, “Time Resolved Active Neutron Simulations on Icy Bodies,” P55G-1669, AGU 2022.
B. Ehresmann, D. Hassler, C. Zeitlin, L.E. Heffern, R.F. Wimmer-Schweingruber, J. Guo, T. Berger, D. Matthiae and G. Reitz, “Solar Energetic Particle Events observed with MSL/RAD on the surface of Mars,” SH44A-03, AGU 2022.
L.E. Heffern, C.J. Hardgrove, “Simulations for Time-Resolved Nuclear Spectroscopy on Titan.” Poster presentation at the 5th Annual Titan Through Time Conference, Virtual, Boulder CO, August 2021.
L. E. Heffern, A. M. Parsons, R. D. Starr, C. J. Hardgrove, E. B. Johnson, G. Stoddard, R. Blakeley, H. Barnaby, T. Prettyman, “Active Neutron and Gamma-Ray Measurements of Icy Planetary Surfaces,” Poster presentation at the 51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Virtual, March 2020.
C. Hardgrove, T. H. Prettyman, R. Starr, T. Colaprete, D. Drake, L. Heffern, LunaH-Map Team, “Improved Hydrogen Maps of the Lunar South Pole by the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) CubeSat Mission,” Poster presentation at the 51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Virtual, March 2020.
L. E. Heffern, A. Parsons, R. Starr, C. Hardgrove, E. Johnson, G. Stoddard, R. Blakeley, H. Barnaby, T. Prettyman, “Active Interrogation of Analog Planetary Surfaces using Neutron and Gamma Ray Instruments,” Poster presentation at the 101st American Geophysical Union Conference, San Francisco, CA, December 2019.
C. J. Hardgrove, R. D. Starr, T. Prettyman, I. Lazbin, A. Colaprete, A. Babuscia, E. B. Johnson, J.F. Christian, L. E. Heffern, J. F. Bell, “The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) Mission: Revealing hydrogen Enrichments at the Moon’s South Pole,” Poster presentation at the 101st American Geophysical Union Conference, San Francisco, CA, December 2019.
L E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, V. V. Mozin, G. B. Kim, D. J. Lawrence, P. N. Peplowski, L. T. Elkins-Tanton, L. A. J. Garvie, T. J. McCoy, T. H. Prettyman, “Understanding the nuclear emissions from metal bodies through experiment: Preparation for the Psyche Mission to a metal world,” Poster presentation at the 100th American Geophysical Union Conference, Washington D.C., December 2018.
L. E. Heffern, C. Hardgrove, E. Johnson, A. Parsons, R. Starr, T. Prettyman, H.
Barnaby, J. Christian, C. Tate, G. Stoddard, A. Martin, J. Moersch, “Pulsed Neutron Experiments with SINGR (SIngle-Scintillator Neutron and Gamma Ray Spectrometer),” Podium presentation at The 4th International Workshop on Instrumentation for Planetary Missions, Berlin Germany, September 2018.
C. Hardgrove, L. E. Heffern, S. T. West, R. Starr, E. Johnson, J. Christian, T. Colaprete, “Neutron Spectrometer for the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper Mission,” Podium presentation at The 4th International Workshop on Instrumentation for Planetary Missions, Berlin Germany, September 2018.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, V. V. Mozin, D. J. Lawrence, P. N. Peplowski, J. O. Goldsten, Z. Yokely, G. Kim, “Mercury, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt: Exploring the Solar System with Gamma Rays,” Invited talk, LLNL Nuclear & Chemical Sciences Weekly Seminar, Livermore CA, July 2018.
L. E. Heffern, C. Hardgrove, E. Johnson, A. Parsons, T. Prettyman, A. Jain, H. Barnaby, J. Christian, C. Tate, G. Stoddard, A. Martin, J. Moersch, “Active Nuclear Investigations of Planetary Surfaces with SINGR (SIngle-Scintillator Neutron and Gamma Ray Spectrometer),” Poster presentation at The 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands TX, March 2018.
C. Hardgrove, S. T. West, L. E. Heffern, E. Johnson, J. Christian, R. Starr, T. Colaprete, “Development of the Miniature Neutron Spectrometer for the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper Mission,” Poster presentation at The 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands TX, March 2018.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, D. J. Lawrence, J. O. Goldstein, P. N. Peplowski, “Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for use in Planetary Sciences,” Invited talk at The San Jose Astronomical Society Monthly Meeting, May 2017.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, D. J. Lawrence, J. O. Goldstein, P. N. Peplowski, “Initial Characterization of the GeMini Plus, a High-Resolution Gamma-Ray Spectrometer for Planetary Composition Measurements,” Poster presentation at The 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands TX, March 2017.
D. J. Lawrence, M. T. Burks, D. H. Do, S. Fix, J. O. Goldsten, L. E. Heffern, R. S. Hourani, S. Kerem, P. N. Peplowski, “The GeMini Plus High-Purity Ge Gamma-Ray Spectrometer: Instrument Overview and Science Applications,” Poster presentation at The 48th LPSC, The Woodlands TX, March 2017.
M. T. Burks, L. E. Heffern, D. J. Lawrence, J. O. Goldstein, P. N. Peplowski, “GeMini Plus: A Versatile Gamma-Ray Spectrometer for Planetary Composition Measurements,” Podium presentation at The 3rd International Workshop on Instrumentation for Planetary Missions, Pasadena CA, October 2016.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, V. V. Mozin, P. N. Peplowski, D. J. Lawrence, J. O. Goldstein, “Neutron activation analysis of iron IV meteorite samples with the GeMini-Plus, a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer designed for extraterrestrial missions,” Podium presentation at the 7th Lunar and Small Bodies Graduate Conference, NASA Ames CA, July 2016.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, P. N. Peplowski, D. J. Lawrence, J. O. Goldstein, “GeMini-Plus: A high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer for planetary composition measurements,” Poster presented at SSERVI Exploration Science Forum, NASA Ames CA, July 2016.
L. E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, J. G. Dreyer, “The LLNL Ge-140 Handheld Spectrometer,” Poster presented at IEEE: Symposium On Radiation Measurements and Applications, Berkeley CA, May 2016.
A. A. Hecht, R. E. Blakeley, L. E. Heffern, C. L. Vowell, P. E. Gilbreath, “The University of New Mexico fission fragment spectrometer,” Podium presentation at the FIESTA Workshops, Santa Fe NM, Sept 2014.
A. A. Hecht, R. E. Blakeley, L. E. Heffern, “The University of New Mexico fission fragment spectrometer, with preliminary results from LANSCE,” Podium presentation at the International Conference on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry, San Antonio TX, May 2014.
L. E. Heffern, R. E. Blakeley, J. R. Cole and A. A. Hecht, “Preliminary results of a 2E-2V Fission Fragment Spectrometer,” Poster presented at UNM Shared Knowledge Conference, Albuquerque NM, April 2014.
L. E. Heffern, R. E. Blakeley, J. R. Cole and A. A. Hecht, “Preliminary results of a 2E-2V Fission Fragment Spectrometer,” Podium presentation at ANS Student Conference, State College PA, April 2014. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1726.6726.
P. E. Gilbreath, C. L. Vowell, L. E. Heffern, R. E. Blakeley, D. M. Mader, and A. A. Hecht, “Optimization of an ionization Chamber for use in Fission Fragment Spectroscopy,” Poster presented at ANS Student Conference, State College PA, April 2014.
L.E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, G. P. Carosi, E. Hull, “Capacitive Multiplexing on a HPGe Imaging Detector”, Poster presented at AAPT Conference, Portland OR, July 2013, Special Award. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4688.0803.
L.E. Heffern, M. T. Burks, G. P. Carosi, E. Hull, “Capacitive Multiplexing on a HPGe Imaging Detector”, Poster presented at CSUC College of Natural Sciences Poster Session, Chico CA, May 2013.
G. P. Carosi, M. T. Burks, L. Heffern, E. Hull , “A Dual Planar Germanium Compton Imager”, Poster presented at the IEEE NPSS Conference, Oakland CA, May 2012.
Press
The State Press, Nov. 13, 2022, “A satellite made by ASU’s researchers will be launched as part of NASA’s Artemis 1 Mission”, by Kaden Ryback and Tyson Wildman; https://www.statepress.com/article/2022/11/asu-built-nasa-artemis-1-mission
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Newsline, June. 14, 2017, “Lab instrument will explore asteroid Psyche”, by Stephen Wampler; https://www.llnl.gov/news/lab-instrument-will-explore-asteroid-psyche
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Newsline, Nov. 4, 2015, “Lab-Johns Hopkins team tapped to work on possible NASA effort to explore asteroid”, by Stephen Wampler; https://www.llnl.gov/news/lab-johns-hopkins-team-tapped-work-possible-nasa-effort-explore-asteroid-0
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Newsline, Sept. 21, 2015, “Harsh conditions can’t contain researchers’ efforts to test radiation detection systems”, by Stephen Wampler; https://www.llnl.gov/news/harsh-conditions-cant-contain-researchers-efforts-test-radiation-detection-systems