Denine Gasway
Papers
3
Total Citations
565
H-Index
3
About
Denine Gasway is a key figure in the search for past life on Mars, specializing in the development and operation of advanced spectroscopic instruments for planetary exploration. Her primary research focuses on Raman spectroscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), and fluorescence imaging, all aimed at detecting organic compounds and potential biosignatures in the Martian surface. Gasway made major contributions to two cornerstone instruments on NASA’s Perseverance rover. She was instrumental in the development and testing of the SuperCam instrument suite, a powerful remote-sensing tool that combines LIBS and Raman techniques to analyze rock chemistry from a distance. Her work on the SHERLOC instrument, a robotic-arm-mounted UV Raman and fluorescence spectrometer, is equally critical; she contributed to its processing electronics and detector system, enabling it to create high-resolution chemical maps of the Martian surface. Her most-cited paper on SuperCam has garnered over 320 citations, while her work on SHERLOC has been cited over 230 times, underscoring the foundational nature of her contributions to Mars science. Through her engineering and scientific expertise, Gasway has directly enabled the Perseverance mission’s core objective of seeking signs of ancient microbial life.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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