MDRS Crew 86
Decmber 26, 2009 - January 1, 2010
Daily Crew Reports

Name	Speciality
Mary Beth Wilhelm	Commander
Raechel Harnoto	Executive Officer, Health and Safety Officer, Chief Biologist
Justin Brannan	Habitat Operations and Human Factors Engineer
Laura Meyer	Field Operations Engineer
Jessica Watkins	Chief Geologist
Heather Bradshaw	Chief Engineer

Mary Beth Wilhelm	Mary Beth is currently a sophomore at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY studying geological and planetary sciences. She is part of the College Scholars Program, conducting her undergraduate thesis work in geomicrobiology and astrobiology. She is the Science Team Project Manager for Cornell's student-led satellite project, Violet, which will hopefully launch by 2012, and also works part time in the Space Sciences Department researching young stellar objects in the infrared. This past summer was her fourth year interning at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA where she worked on the Pavilion Lake Research Project, studying modern-day stromatolites in British Columbia, Canada. She also conducted fieldwork in the Mojave Desert and spent time observing at Mount Palomar's 200-inch telescope. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing in Cornell's Dance Department and is an active member of the Cornell Italian-American Organization (CIAO). This is Mary Beth's second time to MDRS as commander, and is excited to return to the station with a fantastic crew and new exciting scientific and engineering objectives under the mentorship of Dr. Carol Stoker, PI of the DOMMEX Project (Drilling on the Moon and Mars and Human Exploration).
Raechel Harnoto	Raechel Harnoto is a 3rd year Biology major at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. She is studying genetics, molecular, cellular and microbiology and hopes to pursue a career in astrobiology in the future. Raechel has interned at NASA Ames Research Center for two summers working with acidophilic and halophilic bacteria and the possibility of life on Mars and investigating DNA repair mechanisms in tardigrades. She also served as the Chief Biologist on MDRS Crew 73. Raechel also plays the flute in the Cal Poly Marching Band and Wind Orchestra and currently serves as the Vice President of the Iota Pi chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi.
Justin Brannan	Justin Brannan is currently pursuing a degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. Justin serves on the Advisory Board for the College Park Scholars Program and serves as a student mentor for the incoming freshmen. He is also involved with the Hillel as a community service chair, and is an active member of the Primannum Honor Society as well as the AIAA. Born with an innate curiosity about space, Justin's passion for engineering was evident with his childhood obsession with Lego's. His motivation comes from his loving family and his friends, both at college and back at home. This passion was re-established upon Justin's introduction as an intern into the Space Systems Laboratory on campus. He is currently conducting research on future spacesuit technology, developing new joint designs to use in the next generation spacesuit, currently being designed in house. Justin is proud to be a part of the human factors team and enjoys assisting with manned suit dives in the lab's own Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility. With an absolute admiration of the space program, Justin is thrilled to be a part of the MDRS team. Living in an analogue Mars environment and conducting experiments during scheduled EVAs is as close to becoming a real astronaut as he has ever imagined. Justin looks forward to sharing this experience with the rest of the crew, and cannot wait to see the beautiful landscape that "Mars" has to offer!
Laura Meyer	Laura is currently a senior at the University of Maryland where she is double majoring in aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering. After touring KSC during a middle school science competition, she returned home and told her parents she was going to be an aerospace engineer. She is now almost done with her engineering degree and has had a blast. During the school year she keeps busy running the Catholic Student's elderly outreach programs, working at the Space Systems Lab, teaching freshmen engineering classes, helping with engineering outreach and recruitment programs, and working on other fun out of class engineering projects. This past year she was co-founder and group lead for Maryland's CanSat competition. The team designed a small, remote sensing "satellite" and won first place at the international competition. It was a lot of work but a ton of fun. During her summers Laura has also been blessed with fun and great learning experiences. Her first two summers she participated in summer research programs and then during her junior year she did an 8 month co-op at Johnson Space Center!! For some reason they paid her to train astronauts and flight controllers for missions and "play" in mission control. Ok, it was legit work but it felt too fun for work. This past summer she worked at Orbital Sciences designing the next space ship to resupply the ISS! Laura is very excited about spending a week on Mars and then returning to Maryland to finish her undergrad career this spring.
Jessica Watkins	Jessica Watkins is a senior at Stanford University, completing her Geological and Environmental Sciences major with a concentration in planetary geology. Since she was eight years old, she has dreamed of being an astronaut. As a result, she has been an intern with NASA Ames Research Center for two years, investigating Martian soil composition to create a valid soil analog. She is currently analyzing Martian soil grains in Phoenix Mars Lander images to classify the grains into categories and then determine their origin. She has also continued her research on the potential for life on Mars based on its soil at Stanford. She has completed Private Pilot ground school, and is passionate about completing the rest of her Cessna 172 flight hours to obtain her Private Pilot.s license in the near future. In her free time, she is also a member of Stanford.s collegiate national-championship winning rugby team, and of the national sevens rugby team. In addition to the international travel it has allowed her to experience, she also got the once-in-a-lifetime chance to represent the United States in the inaugural Women.s Rugby Sevens World Cup in Dubai, making her one of the first 12 professional women rugby players in the country. In the future, she hopes to attend graduate school, become an astronaut, and study planetary geology hands-on. This will be her first MDRS rotation and she is both very grateful for and very much looking forward to her first, but hopefully not last, opportunity to experience Mars!
Heather Bradshaw	Heather Bradshaw is currently studying engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD). She is also involved in space suit research at the Space Systems Laboratory at UMD, and she has participated in the NASA Academy internship program working on the James Webb Space Telescope. She is currently working part-time as a co-op at NASA with school, helping to design and build space science satellites. Her outside interests include sailing, singing, ballroom dancing, and repairing MDRS rovers. Her dream is to explore the universe... onward to Mars!!

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