Ithaca College

The Department of Physics and Astronomy would like to recognize Robert Melikyan ’20 and Salvatore Ferrone ’18, who are working on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. The mission aims to collect and return a sample from Bennu, a 1,600-foot-wide asteroid.

Melikyan and Ferrone have both worked as research assistants for Professor Beth Ellen Clark, who is OSIRIS-REx’s mission asteroid scientist.

Several other alumni have also helped Professor Clark with her work on this mission: Stavrini Tsangari, Fedor Efremenko, Megan Kelleher, Linda Crandall, Nathan Fieger, Kat Kennovin, Marcell Fischler, Jeff Jaquith, Cateline Lantz, Alice Praet, and Driss Takir.

You can read more about Melikyan and Ferrone’s contributions to this important project on IC News.