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About

M. Bierwirth is a planetary seismologist whose work has been central to humanity’s first direct measurements of Mars’ deep interior. As a key contributor to the SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure) instrument on NASA’s InSight mission, Bierwirth helped deploy the first seismometer on the Red Planet since the Viking landers in the 1970s. Their most cited work, the 2019 *Space Science Reviews* paper detailing SEIS’s design and capabilities, has garnered over 375 citations, serving as the foundational reference for the mission’s seismic data. Bierwirth’s research focuses on understanding the Martian surface environment and its effect on seismic recordings. In a notable 2021 study, they characterized the tilt and transfer function of the InSight lander using the short-period seismometer, providing critical constraints on local noise sources—such as wind and thermal effects—that must be removed to detect genuine marsquakes. This work has been essential for distinguishing faint seismic signals from lander-induced vibrations, enabling the discovery of hundreds of marsquakes. By bridging instrument engineering and geophysical interpretation, Bierwirth has helped unlock the seismic structure of Mars, advancing our understanding of terrestrial planet formation.