Christina Richey

Christina "Chrissy" Richey is an American planetary scientist and astrophysicist working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California. Richey is a project staff scientist for the Europa Clipper mission and is a research technologist in the Astrophysics and Space Sciences Section. Prior to working at JPL, Richey worked as contractor for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. They were a program officer in NASA's Planetary Science Division, the deputy program scientist for the OSIRIS-REx mission, and the deputy science advisor for research and analysis for the Science Mission Directorate.

Richey is known for their education about the effects of harassment in the workplace and within the planetary and astronomical sciences. They were the chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy from 2015 to 2017, was the co-chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences' Subcommittee on Professional Climate and Culture, from 2015 to 2017, and are an active blogger for the Women in Astronomy blog.

Early life and education Richey received their undergraduate degree in physics at Wheeling Jesuit University in 2004. They completed their master's (2007) and PhD (2011) in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where they did laboratory investigations related to both the icy moons of the outer solar system and the interstellar medium. They were a NASA postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where they studied the optical properties of dust grain analogs to better understand early stellar system formation. 2015: Received WJU James O'Brien Award from Wheeling Jesuit University 2015: Named the Alumni Scholar in Residence by Wheeling Jesuit University 2015: Received Harold Masursky Award from the Division for Planetary Sciences for outstanding service to planetary science and exploration 2016: Received the Trailblazing Alumni Award in the College of Arts and Sciences by The University of Alabama at Birmingham 2020: Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.