Stephen Wood
  Research Assistant Professor
  Office: JHN-247
     ESS Mailing Address
  Phone: 206-543-0090
  Fax: 206-543-0489 (shared)
  Email: sewood @ ess.washington.edu
  Homepage:

  Research Groups: Planetary Sciences, Planetary Surfaces

Areas of Interest:
Planetary surface processes; Mars polar caps, ground ice, and climate evolution; Icy satellite surface evolution; Microphysics of heat and mass transfer; Spacecraft and laboratory

Education:
Ph.D., Geophysics & Space Physics, University of California, Los Angeles (1999)
B.S., Physics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990)

Current Research Interests:
In the broadest terms, my research concerns the interactive and evolving relationships between planetary surfaces, volatiles, and environmental conditions. By "surfaces" I mean not just the visible upper surface, but the entire regolith - the porous outer layer covering the bedrock of a planet or moon. By "volatiles" I mean any compounds which can exist in vapor and condensed phases over the range of surface temperatures and pressures on the planet, such as H2O on Earth, CO2 on Mars, or N2 on Triton. And "environmental conditions" include factors such as the planet's orbital parameters. These three components form a strongly coupled system that evolves through time, driven by changes in external forcing such as the solar or geothermal flux.

Much of my work is focused on understanding the microphysical processes that govern the internal response and feedback mechanisms in these coupled systems. My primary objective is to develop mechanistic models - guided by observations and tested by experiment - that can predict the thermodynamic phase, physical properties, fluxes, and spatial distribution of volatiles for any given set of regolith properties and environmental conditions.

Current projects include:

• Science planning and data analysis for the Phoenix Mars Lander mission
• Interpretation of data from the Mars Climate Sounder, an instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• Laboratory studies of heat and mass transfer in icy soils using a Mars environmental simulation chamber
• Development of a coupled, non-steady-state, 1-D numerical model for heat and mass transfer in icy soils
• Development of a 3-D landscape evolution model for the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn