Daniella Mendoza DellaGiustina

Daniella ("Dani") Mendoza DellaGiustina is a Mexican American planetary scientist and academic. She is the principal investigator for NASA's OSIRIS-APEX Mission to asteroid (99942) Apophis, Deputy Principal Investigator of NASA's OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission, and assistant professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

DellaGiustina received the NASA Silver Achievement Medal for her contributions to the success of NASA's first Asteroid Sample Return Mission. Her areas of interest and research expertise lie in the fields of surface processes, geophysical and remote sensing instrument development, planetary analog field testing, and water distribution in the Solar System.

Education DellaGiustina completed her Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Arizona in 2008. She then received a Master of Science in computational physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2011. Later, she earned a PhD in geosciences from the University of Arizona in 2021 while working concurrently as a research scientist. She is also the assistant professor at the University of Arizona, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Composition and structure of asteroid Bennu DellaGiustina has conducted research aimed at analyzing the surface evolution of asteroids, with a specific focus on the asteroid Bennu. While investigating the formation and degradation patterns on the surface of asteroid Bennu, she co-led a study that discovered variations in boulders with differing albedo and physical characteristics, suggesting that the boulder's ages range from the time of the parent body's formation and subsequent disruption to the recent production in near-Earth space. With regards to her research into the reflectance and colour variations observed on Bennu's surface, her work indicated that the heterogeneity of its primordial materials, coupled with varying exposure times, are responsible for the observed variations, and also implied that the progression of space weathering follows a distinct trend rather than a predictable red-to-blue or blue-to-red pattern. This unusual space weathering pattern may be related to asteroid Bennu's hydration state. She is also responsible for the discovery of material from asteroid Vesta implanted on Bennu's surface, likely from an impact on its parent body.

Awards and honors 2017 – Group Achievement Award for development of the OSIRIS-REx mission ground system, NASA 2018 – Group Achievement Award for the OSIRIS-REx Earth Gravity Assist, NASA 2020 – Group Achievement Award for the OSIRIS-REx Approach & Preliminary Survey, NASA 2020 – Silver Achievement Medal for OSIRIS-REx Site Selection, NASA 2022 – Woman of Impact, University of Arizona 2022 – Brilliant 10, Popular Science Magazine

Selected articles DellaGiustina, D. N., Bennett, C. A., Becker, K., Golish, D. R., Le Corre, L., Cook, D. A.... & Lauretta, D. S. (2018). Overcoming the challenges associated with image‐based mapping of small bodies in preparation for the OSIRIS‐REx mission to (101955) Bennu. Earth and Space Science, 5(12), 929–949. Lauretta, D. S., DellaGiustina, D. N., Bennett, C. A., Golish, D. R., Becker, K. J., Balram-Knutson, S. S.... & Wolner, C. W. V. (2019). The unexpected surface of asteroid (101955) Bennu. Nature, 568(7750), 55–60. DellaGiustina, D. N., Emery, J. P., Golish, D. R., Rozitis, B., Bennett, C. A., Burke, K. N.... & Lauretta, D. S. (2019). Properties of rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx imaging and thermal analysis. Nature Astronomy, 3(4), 341–351. DellaGiustina, D. N., Burke, K. N., Walsh, K. J., Smith, P. H., Golish, D. R., Bierhaus, E. B.... & Lauretta, D. S. (2020). Variations in color and reflectance on the surface of asteroid (101955) Bennu. Science, 370(6517), eabc3660. DellaGiustina, D. N., Kaplan, H. H., Simon, A. A., Bottke, W. F., Avdellidou, C., Delbo, M.... & Lauretta, D. S. (2021). Exogenic basalt on asteroid (101955) Bennu. Nature Astronomy, 5(1), 31–38.