Claire Newman
Claire Newman was born in a small village near Oxford, UK, and grew up reading sci-fi/fantasy novels and watching TV shows (from Star Trek and Blake’s 7 to Stargate and Farscape) about exploring other planets. She then became interested in atmospheric science following a high school project on wind turbines and windmills. Combining her two favorite topics, she completed a doctorate and a two-year postdoc on Martian dust storms and their impact on Mars’s climate at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics department, before moving to the California Institute of Technology for six years to work on the atmospheres of Mars and Titan. Her interest in how dust is raised from the Martian surface led her to become involved in efforts to understand aeolian (wind-driven) surface features and activity on other planets, from Titan dunes to Martian dust devils. She is currently a Senior Research Scientist, Vice President and Co-Owner at Aeolis Research, a small, US-based planetary science research company, where she focuses on understanding the weather and climate of Mars and Titan via observations and numerical modelling, with particular interest in boundary layer meteorology, aeolian processes, and dust storms. She is a member of the science teams of the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, InSight Mars lander, and Dragonfly Titan rotorcraft. She was a member of the Mars panel for the 2023 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey, has served on several other National Academy or MEPAG groups and committees (most recently, MEPAG’s Search For Life Science Analysis Group), and is a member of MEPAG’s Goals Committee. Since 2020, she has lived on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, UK, where she enjoys giving science outreach talks to local schools, libraries, and other organizations.