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About

Dr. Joan Ervin is a leading aerospace engineer whose work has been pivotal in advancing planetary exploration through sophisticated robotic instrumentation. Her primary research focuses on the development and deployment of cutting-edge analytical tools for Mars surface missions, specializing in remote sensing and in-situ geochemical analysis. Dr. Ervin made major contributions as a key architect of the SuperCam instrument suite on the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. This groundbreaking system, detailed in her most-cited paper (322 citations), combines laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and remote Raman spectroscopy to analyze rock and soil chemistry from a distance, fundamentally changing how we investigate Martian geology. She also played a critical role in developing PIXL (135 citations), the Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, which provides high-resolution elemental mapping of Martian samples. Earlier, Dr. Ervin was instrumental in designing the InSight Mars Lander’s Robotics Instrument Deployment System (62 citations), a complex robotic arm that successfully placed seismometers and heat-flow probes on the Martian surface. Her work has directly enabled some of the most significant discoveries about Mars’ composition and geological history.