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Nicholas Warner ’00, �ʹڲ�����ַ associate professor of geological, environmental, and planetary sciences, was recently awarded a $307,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars Data Analysis Program for a project that will help advance Mars geological and climate research.

During the three-year project, Warner and a team of researchers from several institutions, including the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, will use three-dimensional data to study the shape of small impact craters at the sites of previous Mars landings. The team will examine how the geology at these locations influences the shapes of craters and how they erode over time. 

The grant provides a summer salary for Warner and the following funding for �ʹڲ�����ַ student researchers each year:

• Wages for four �ʹڲ�����ַ undergraduate research assistants
• Travel expenses for research assistants and Warner to attend the Lunar Planetary Science Conference
• Open-access publishing costs of research findings

The project, titled “Comparative 3D morphometric analysis of 100-m-scale impact craters on Mars and implications for understanding target lithology, near surface stratigraphy, and surface processes,” starts in September 2025. 

Warner joined the �ʹڲ�����ַ faculty in 2014 and has since earned several NASA grants to study the evolution of Mars and rocky planets. He was part of a team that chose the landing site for NASA’s InSight Mars Mission in 2018. After InSight landed, Warner and two �ʹڲ�����ַ students examined terrain under the lander to make recommendations on where to place geological instruments that measured seismic shock waves, core heat, and the planet’s rotation.