Thomas Prettyman

I received my PhD in Nuclear Engineering in 1991 from North Carolina State University. I joined PSI in 2007 after 14 years as a member of the Technical Staff of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). While at LANL, I developed instrumentation and systems for nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation. I also participated in the design, development, and operation of space-based radiation detectors for Department of Energy nuclear monitoring payloads. I was a member of the Lunar Prospector team at LANL and a Participating Scientist on the 2001 Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer investigation (primary and extended missions). As a Co-I of the NASA Dawn mission, I served as lead for the Gamma Ray Neutron Detector (GRaND) from development through end of mission. Current missions include Psyche (Co-I), a mission to main belt asteroid 16 Psyche, LunaH-Map (Co-I), a small-sat lunar orbiter mission, and Lunar-VISE, which will deploy a rover to the Gruithuisen Domes to study silicic volcanism. Experience with terrestrial analog studies includes work on the SSERVI/TREX project as a science and instrument lead for a rover-based gamma-ray spectrometer. In addition to planetary missions, I have worked on instrument/concept development (PIDDP/PICASSO), data analysis (DDAP/LDAP/MDAP), and NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC Phase I/II fellow). I’m currently the PI for a project studying Ceres’ hydrothermal evolution and crustal processes (DDAP).