Scholarship Award Alumni - Claire Blaske

Claire describes herself as “infinitely curious”.  Her father is a geologist, and growing up her family visited national parks, which ingrained a passion for looking at the world and wondering “why it is the way it is.”  This interest grew after attending a talk by a family friend who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the discovery of water on Mars. At an early age she decided she want to be an exoplanetary geologist, and saw how planetary science combined her interests in geology, astronomy, physics and chemistry.

She has participated in a number of research projects while at Arizona State.  Topics have included exoplanet magnetic fields, water ice on Mars, and the ablation of meteors in the Venusian atmosphere.  At Caltech, she developed a spectral library of brucite samples to understand the process of serpentinization on both Earth and Mars.  She finds doing research rewarding, learning something new every day, and says, “adding a little bit to the edge of human knowledge is just so exciting”.  She is grateful to her mentors who have answered every question about classes, graduate school, publishing papers, academia, career paths, and internships.

Claire’s other avocation is curling (“yes, the sport on the ice with stones!” as she describes it), which she has done since age 11.  She says, “curling is a second home” and she enjoys being a positive teammate, “happy to curl anywhere, with anyone, anytime.”  She enjoys playing as vice-skip and her team has won the bronze medal at the 2022 USA Curling Women's Club Nationals.  Intersecting with her professional aspirations, she says, “Curling … [has] had a huge impact on my dedication, teamwork skills, and resilience towards continuing my research career.”

Update (January 2024): Claire is a Ph.D. student in Earth and Planetary Surfaces at Stanford University.