Peter Lawson

Education

As an undergraduate, my interest in amateur radio led to internships in astronomical radio interferometry at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, NRAO Greenbank, Arecibo Observatory, and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. This in turn led to Ph.D. research in long baseline optical stellar interferometry at the University of Sydney (Australia), postdoctoral research at the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (France) and the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), and for over ten years a leading role in technology development of mid-infrared space interferometry at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

More recently, my interests have been focused on applications of machine learning to enhance the performance of instruments for planetary exploration. I implemented the adaptive sampling algorithm that is currently used on Mars by the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) on the Perseverance rover. This was the first time that autonomous decision making was demonstrated in real-time analysis of rock composition on another planet. I continue to be involved with the PIXL Science Team as a Collaborator with research interests in developing new methods of real-time detection of trace elements during surface operations.

I have participated extensively in NASA's public outreach for the Exoplanet Program and authored a volume of collected reprints on long baseline stellar interferometry for the SPIE. I am also an accomplished ultra-runner, having completed more than a dozen 100-mile endurance runs. I hold an Extra-class amateur radio license with the call sign N1KJ.