Dane Schoelen
Papers
2
Total Citations
4
H-Index
2
About
Dane Schoelen is a robotics engineer whose work bridges the critical gap between polar climate science and extraterrestrial exploration. His primary research focuses on developing autonomous robotic systems for extreme environments, with key contributions to both Antarctic glaciology and Mars sample return missions. Schoelen’s most notable work includes the design and system analysis of IceNode, a novel buoyant vehicle engineered to measure melt rates beneath Antarctic ice shelves—a mission critical to understanding sea-level rise projections. This innovative platform addresses a major source of uncertainty in climate models by accessing sub-ice cavities that have remained largely unexplored. In parallel, Schoelen led the development of ‘Bradbury’, a robotic arm system testbed for NASA’s Mars Sample Return campaign, demonstrating his versatility in creating hardware for planetary science. His work on the Sample Retrieval Lander’s Sample Transfer and Handling Subsystem represents a foundational step toward bringing Martian samples to Earth for the first time. Though early in his career, Schoelen’s contributions to two of the most ambitious scientific endeavors of our era—polar ice sheet dynamics and Mars sample return—underscore his emerging reputation as a systems thinker capable of tackling grand challenges in robotics and exploration.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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