Cathy Olkin

Cathy Olkin is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, focusing on the outer Solar System. She is deputy principal investigator for NASA's Lucy mission examining the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, which launched in 2021 and will fly past its targets between 2025 and 2033.

Early life and education Olkin was born and raised in Michigan. As a child, Olkin considered a variety of careers in science and academia, including geologist, paleontologist, archaeologist, and doctor.

In college, she was pre-med before switching to engineering, Her dissertation advisor was James L. Elliot.

Career Olkin was a deputy project scientist on NASA's New Horizons team responsible for the July 2015 flyby of Pluto and became co-principal investigator for New Horizons''' Ralph instrument, a color camera and near-infrared imaging spectrometer.

She is deputy principal investigator for NASA's Lucy mission examining the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, She has published over 400 papers, with more than 2,000 citations. reviewing the collection in The New York Times''. Michiko Kakutani described Olkin's contribution as "a thrilling account...of last-minute emergency repairs made to the New Horizons spacecraft as it traveled three billion miles to get a close-up of Pluto."

Olkin also engages in public outreach. In 2015, Olkin shared discoveries from her work with NASA's New Horizons mission at a TEDxDetroit talk.