Carly Howett

Carly Howett is an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Edmund Hall. She will formally take up her Oxford post in the Department of Physics (Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics sub-department) from July 2020, while continuing her role as Assistant Director of the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute, USA.

Education & Academic Appointments

• Associate Professor of Physics, University of Oxford (effective July 2020)
• Tutorial Fellow, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford (concurrent)
• Governing Body Fellow, St Edmund Hall
• Assistant Director, Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute, USA (current)

Research Interests

Dr Howett is a planetary physicist specialising in the development of space instrumentation to explore the surfaces of icy worlds throughout the Solar System. Her work spans mission concept studies, instrument calibration, thermal and imaging data analysis, and mission operations planning. She has particular expertise in the thermal properties and compositional mapping of surfaces on Saturn’s icy moons, Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, Europa, and Kuiper Belt Objects such as Pluto and Charon.

Her technical leadership centres on visible and infrared instruments, including the Ralph imaging spectrometer on New Horizons, the thermal infrared CIRS instrument on Cassini, and instruments under development for Lucy and Europa Clipper. She is Deputy Principal Investigator for the proposed Trident mission to Neptune’s moon Triton and leads a NASA-funded study for a potential return mission to Pluto.

Leadership & Outreach

Beyond pure research, Carly is an advocate for equality in science and an enthusiastic outreach practitioner. She regularly engages with schools and the public, appears on TV and radio, and coordinates the Southwest Research Institute’s presence at Denver Pop Culture Con to bring cutting-edge planetary science to wider audiences.