Shoshana Z. Weider, PhD
PSD Executive Officer/Program Officer
Shoshana Z. Weider is the Planetary Science Division (PSD) Executive Officer and a Program Officer in PSD at NASA Headquarters.
As Executive Officer, Shoshana supports the PSD Director, and the division as a whole, in public- and community-facing engagements, daily operations, and strategic planning. Within the PSD Research and Analysis Group, Shoshana leads the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter Participating Scientist Program and acts as the PSD lead for all Mercury-exploration-related activities. This includes serving as the NASA Liaison for the Mercury Exploration Assessment Group (MExAG) and as the Program Scientist for the NASA-contributed STROFIO payload on BepiColombo, the ESA/JAXA-led mission to Mercury.
Before coming to NASA Headquarters in 2018, Shoshana spent several years as a science writer and editor. She worked as a science communicator—working on print and online projects, for a variety of audiences—for many leading institutions in Europe, including the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Centre, as well as the UK’s Diamond Light Source and Science Media Centre. In her role as a Senior Technical Editor for Form and Content Media Shoshana edited more than 600 technical articles for SPIE Newsroom and the Society of Plastics Engineers’ Plastics Research Online hub. She was also the Communications Manager for the Institute for Molecular Science and Engineering at Imperial College London for two years.
Shoshana conducted her postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. Her research was focused on the analysis and interpretation of geochemical remote sensing data from terrestrial planets and the Moon. Specifically, Shoshana worked as part of NASA’s MESSENGER mission team and was responsible for data analysis from the spacecraft’s X-Ray Spectrometer. Her work was part of a major revolution in the understanding of Mercury’s surface chemistry and the history of the innermost planet as a whole.
Shoshana holds a PhD in Lunar Science from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Master of Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford. For her PhD, Shoshana worked with the UK team that built the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer. She combined new data from that instrument with a variety of other remote sensing data sets to study the geochemistry of the lunar surface.
Passionate about science outreach, Shoshana often conducts school talks and is the author of multiple space-themed children’s books published by DK Children’s. When not thinking about space, you will likely find Shoshana with her head in a book or enjoying an evening at the theatre or symphony.
