Alumnus Honored as Recipient of Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Alum­nus Justin Hagerty, a research geol­o­gist with the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey, was named as one of Pres­i­dent Obama’s 96 recip­i­ents of the Pres­i­den­tial Early Career Award for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers (PECASE), the high­est honor bestowed by the United States gov­ern­ment on sci­ence and engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the early stages of their inde­pen­dent research careers.

Hagerty earned his Ph.D. (2004), his M.S. (2001) and his B.S. with Hon­ors (1998) all in Earth and Plan­e­tary Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico. He was a post-doctoral fel­low at the Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory (2004–07), where he stud­ied lunar geochemistry.

Hagerty was one of two researchers with con­nec­tions at UNM, includ­ing Sr. Research Sci­en­tist Fran­cis McCub­bin of the UNM Insti­tute of Mete­orit­ics, named as a recip­i­ent of the PECASE.

An accom­plished research geol­o­gist, Hagerty stud­ied the for­ma­tion of the Moon and dis­cov­ered the answer to a long-standing rid­dle of the Moon’s early his­tory. His use of chem­i­cal trac­ers and remote sens­ing data allowed him to dis­cover why cer­tain ele­ments are con­cen­trated in some areas and not in oth­ers, a puz­zle which had com­pli­cated the pri­mary the­ory of how the Moon came to be.

“Dis­cov­er­ies in sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy not only strengthen our econ­omy, they inspire us as a peo­ple.” Pres­i­dent Obama said. “The impres­sive accom­plish­ments of today’s awardees so early in their careers promise even greater advances in the years ahead.”

The Pres­i­den­tial early career awards embody the high pri­or­ity the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion places on pro­duc­ing out­stand­ing sci­en­tists and engi­neers to advance the Nation’s goals, tackle grand chal­lenges, and con­tribute to the Amer­i­can economy.

“It is a tremen­dous and highly unex­pected honor to receive such a pres­ti­gious award, and I am very grate­ful for all of the oppor­tu­ni­ties and sup­port I have received through­out my career, par­tic­u­larly at the USGS,” said Hagerty. “Because my research is based on com­bin­ing data from a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines, I have had the oppor­tu­nity to work with many tal­ented col­leagues from var­ied back­grounds who have helped to shape my career.”

“The USGS traces its pro­gram in astro­ge­ol­ogy back nearly 50 years to the Nation’s need to train astro­nauts des­tined for the Moon in lunar geol­ogy,” said USGS Direc­tor Mar­cia McNutt. “The President’s recog­ni­tion of Justin Hagerty for his con­tri­bu­tions to explain­ing long-standing para­doxes con­cern­ing the early evo­lu­tion of the only extrater­res­trial body to which man has yet ven­tured is one of the high­est hon­ors yet for this excep­tional program.”

The com­monly accepted the­ory of how the Moon formed hypoth­e­sized that a Mars-sized plan­e­tary body col­lided with a proto-Earth. This mas­sive col­li­sion led to the cre­ation of the Moon and the Earth as we know them today. How­ever, one major issue with this the­ory is that, based on mod­els of such a col­li­sion, there should be an even, global dis­tri­b­u­tion of cer­tain ele­ments like potas­sium, ura­nium, tho­rium, and the rare earth elements.

Instead, these ele­ments are mostly con­cen­trated in the hemi­sphere of the Moon that faces the Earth. To learn why, Hagerty stud­ied expanses of geo­logic mate­ri­als on the far side of the Moon called basalt ponds.

Lunar basalts are much like basalts on the Earth in that they are a prod­uct of melt­ing the man­tle, which is the area between the crust and the core of the Moon. Given this infor­ma­tion, it is pos­si­ble to use com­po­si­tional data derived from the basalts to learn about the com­po­si­tion of the lunar inte­rior. Much focus has been placed on basalts on the near side of the Moon, pri­mar­ily because the Apollo mis­sions only returned sam­ples from that part of the lunar sur­face. How­ever, it is now pos­si­ble (and nec­es­sary) to use a com­bi­na­tion of lunar sam­ple analy­sis and remote sens­ing obser­va­tions to inves­ti­gate mate­ri­als on the lunar far side, thus giv­ing us a global context.

His research shows that another major impact event on the Moon, now known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin, greatly dis­rupted the early for­ma­tion of the Moon, result­ing in the migra­tion and even­tual con­cen­tra­tion of these ele­ments to the side of the Moon that faces the Earth.

“I have also used the method­ol­ogy of com­bin­ing sam­ple and remote sens­ing data to inves­ti­gate other unre­solved issues in lunar sci­ence,” added Hagerty. “In par­tic­u­lar, I worked with sev­eral col­leagues to estab­lish the exis­tence of sili­cic vol­canic domes on the Moon.”

It was pre­vi­ously thought that sili­cic vol­ca­noes, which erupt silica-rich mate­ri­als like quartz, instead of the more com­mon basalts, were not pos­si­ble on the Moon. To explain the ori­gin of these fea­tures, Hagerty devel­oped a new model for how such fea­tures could be pro­duced in the unique lunar envi­ron­ment. This model demon­strates that sili­cic lunar vol­ca­noes can be pro­duced quite eas­ily and likely com­prise a much larger por­tion of the lunar crust than was thought. These results have impor­tant impli­ca­tions for crustal for­ma­tion mod­els and cal­cu­la­tions of the bulk com­po­si­tion of the Moon.

Hagerty’s results are crit­i­cal to under­stand­ing the early his­tory and evo­lu­tion of our clos­est celes­tial neighbor.

“Prior to grad­u­ate school, I, like many peo­ple, had assumed that the Moon was a dull, life­less body,” said Hagerty. “How­ever, after hav­ing the oppor­tu­nity to learn from experts in lunar sci­ence and to exam­ine lunar sam­ple and remote sens­ing data myself, it quickly became appar­ent that the Moon is an extra­or­di­nary plan­e­tary body and that we have only scratched the sur­face of truly under­stand­ing how the Moon formed and evolved. To have an oppor­tu­nity to play a role in shap­ing our cumu­la­tive knowl­edge of the Moon is a hum­bling experience.”

Hagerty is cur­rently the cura­tor of the USGS Meteor Crater Sam­ple Col­lec­tion, as well as the chair of NASA’s Regional Plan­e­tary Image Facil­ity Network.

The USGS Meteor Crater Sam­ple Col­lec­tion is an ongo­ing project funded by NASA that ana­lyzes drill sam­ples from Meteor Crater and makes the sam­ples avail­able to the plan­e­tary sci­ence com­mu­nity. The NASA Regional Plan­e­tary Image Facil­ity Net­work is an inter­na­tional sys­tem of plan­e­tary data libraries that main­tains a wide range of data prod­ucts from NASA plan­e­tary mis­sions includ­ing pho­tographs, maps, films, engi­neer­ing plans, and his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments and arti­facts. The over­rid­ing mis­sion of the Net­work is to make these mate­ri­als avail­able to the public.

Hagerty came to the USGS in 2007, join­ing the USGS Astro­ge­ol­ogy Sci­ence Cen­ter in Flagstaff, Ari­zona. He has been the prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor on eight NASA stud­ies and col­lab­o­rated on an addi­tional four stud­ies. His research has exam­ined not only lunar geo­chem­istry, but also lunar map­ping, aster­oid map­ping, and impact cratering.

Hagerty’s offi­cial cita­tion from the Award reads:

Depart­ment of Interior/US Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey
Justin J. Hagerty
U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Survey

For cut­ting edge research fus­ing remote-sensing data of the Moon with lab­o­ra­tory mea­sure­ments to estab­lish a new coher­ent model of the lunar crust and man­tle and for lead­er­ship and ser­vice con­tri­bu­tions for an inter­na­tional net­work of 17 Regional Plan­e­tary Image Facilities.

The Pres­i­den­tial Early Career Awards for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers was estab­lished by Pres­i­dent Clin­ton in 1996, and are coor­di­nated by the Office of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Pol­icy within the Exec­u­tive Office of the Pres­i­dent. Awardees are selected for their pur­suit of inno­v­a­tive research at the fron­tiers of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy and their com­mit­ment to com­mu­nity ser­vice as demon­strated through sci­en­tific lead­er­ship, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, or com­mu­nity outreach.

Media Con­tact: Steve Carr, (505) 277‑1821; email: scarr@unm.edu