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Lena Heffern
Temporary Hourly Aerospace Science – Scholarship Learning Community Support
Aviation & Aerospace Science
[email protected]Bio
Space exploration brings researchers from different countries and backgrounds together in pursuit of a common goal to benefit humanity. My exploration training started in my parents' automotive shop, where I learned how to weld, use a lathe, cut metal with plasma, change oil, fix a tire, and drive fast cars. I grew up around the smell of engines and watching Star Trek with my family - space exploration was my natural path.I received my interdisciplinary PhD in Exploration Systems Design from Arizona State University in Tempe, with an emphasis on nuclear instrumentation design for planetary applications and payload systems engineering. I did my post-doc at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO, with an emphasis on space radiation and heliophysics, with additional work in systems engineering on particle detection systems. I spent two years as a senior systems engineer working on heliophysics payloads at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics, in Boulder, CO, with opportunities to work on NASA and NOAA programs. I spent a year as a small sat senior systems engineer at Spire Global in Boulder, CO, and had the opportunity to work with the Canadian Space Agency. Prior to graduate school I worked as a nuclear engineer/physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Degree
PhD in Exploration Systems Design
Arizona State University
MS in Nuclear Engineering
University of New Mexico
BS in Double Major in Physics & Mechanical Engineering
California State University: Chico
Research Interests
My research interests include mission development for Moon and Mars exploration, development of new instrumentation technologies and techniques for science exploration, implementation of forward-modeling (e.g., MCMC) in planetary science data analysis, nuclear power systems for space exploration, and studying the effects of radiative processes throughout the solar system. All of these research topics benefit greatly from systems-thinking and early systems design.
I am a continued mission scientist on the LunaH-Map mission, and am a Co-Investigator on the NASA Lunar-VISE CLPS mission's LV-GRNS instrument. I am also a member of the NASA South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return and eXploration (SPARX) Science Definition Team (SDT).
Teaching Interests
My interest in teaching began at Cal State Chico, in room 110 of the Physical Sciences Building (which is now being moved into a brand new building). Room 110 was the physics study and tutor room; from 2009 to 2013, Room 110 is where I received academic help from peers, and where I later helped other students. I have been tutoring physics, engineering, and math in some form, whether individually or in groups, since 2010.
My style of teaching pedagogy is a mix of what I learned from my professors at Chico State and what I’ve learned teaching at Arizona State University (ASU) and Grand Canyon University (GCU): a learner-centered approach. I adapt to the classroom and the students I am working with; where I can, I combine lecture with inquiry, hands-on, and discussion. I have taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in online, in-person, and hybrid formats for both lecture and lab and have received high Student Evaluations (SE) with students emphasizing on my ability to explain concepts in multiple ways.