[meteorite-list] Chicago Researcher Seeks Clues to Universe in Rocks

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/zinescene/cst-fin-ecol05.html

She seeks clues to universe in rocks 
BY SANDRA GUY 
Chicago Sun-Times
May 5, 2004

A Chicago expert on rocks is closely following the discoveries by NASA's
twin rovers that water once existed on Mars.

Why would a student of earthbound material be so fascinated by outer
space?

Meenakshi Wadhwa, curator of meteorites and director of the isotope
geochemistry lab at the Field Museum, hopes that future spacecraft
to Mars bring back valuable cargo: Samples of the Red Planet itself.

Wadhwa expects her new laboratory at the museum to get bits of those
samples, though it probably won't happen for at least another decade.

Her more immediate concern is the Genesis spacecraft, which is bringing
back particles swept off the sun by solar wind.

The goal of the Genesis project is to learn about the chemical makeup 
of the sun, which in turn can provide clues about the makeup of the gas 
and dust that produced our solar system, Wadhwa said. It will be no 
easy task because the sample will be so tiny.

Yet Wadhwa, 36, who was recently profiled in Discover magazine, found 
her calling through tough assignments.  The first hurdle came when 
Wadhwa's science teacher in her native India told the class that people 
breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Even at age 8, Wadhwa knew something did not quite add up. "I thought, 
'Oh my God, we're going to be out of oxygen pretty soon.'"

Luckily for Wadhwa, her mother was among the fortunate women in India 
who had a college education, and could explain the cycles in nature 
that keep Earth's systems in balance.

Wadhwa said she was fortunate to have her parents' support to pursue a 
college education and a Ph.D., even though she was for many years the 
only woman in her classes.

Her undergraduate studies required that she take field trips throughout 
India, from deserts in the west to the heights of the Himalayas. The 
geology department faculty had no female members, and Wadhwa was one of 
only two women in a class of 20.

Being in the minority was not easy, especially because many of Wadhwa's 
male classmates doubted her abilities.

But Wadhwa toughed it out, and finished first in her class.

"I stayed very focused on learning, and on what I wanted to get out of 
[the studies]," she said. "That's how I got through it."

She turned down a job offer at the Oil and Natural Gas Commission in India, 
and instead came to the United States when she was 21.

Wadhwa earned her Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis, where her 
academic adviser was a woman, Ghislaine Crozaz, a native of Belgium and 
professor of geochemistry in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department.

"I saw a woman doing exactly the sort of things I could be doing, and 
being incredibly successful," Wadhwa said.  "It was great to be able to 
see that."

Wadhwa chose Washington University because of the reputation of its 
planetary sciences program, which includes everything from meteorite 
studies to spacecraft remote sensing. She became a "cosmochemist," 
studying rocks from the asteroids, moon and Mars that have arrived on 
Earth as meteorites.

She is excited about NASA's new plans, initiated by President Bush's 
vision, to further explore the moon and Mars, and she wants to be in 
the thick of it.

She is now helping create a center for cosmochemistry in Chicago, 
along with Andrew Davis, senior scientist in the Department of 
Geophysical Sciences and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University 
of Chicago, and Michael Pellin, senior chemist and group leader of 
Directed Energy Interactions With Surfaces at Argonne National
Laboratory.

"We are hoping to attract many more researchers to come here from all 
over the world," Wadhwa said.