Research

A sample of both my ongoing and previous work.
Here is my CV (last updated: January 2024).

Ice on Mars and the PIXL instrument on the Mars Perseverance Rover

In late September 2021, I began the UW dual-title Earth and Space Sciences with Astrobiology Ph.D. program. I work with Michelle Koutnik on glacial geomorphology in the mid-latitudes of Mars. Specifically, I'm investigating alcoves in the mid-latitudes of Mars (such as Deuteronilus Mensae) as potential paleoenvironmental indicators. With Tim Elam, I'm working on the PIXL team with the Mars Perseverance rover. Check back here for updates!

The Age and Erosion Rate of Young Sedimentary Rock on Mars

For my honors senior thesis project at UChicago (completed May 2021), I wrote a model based on the Poisson equation to estimate the formation age and erosion rate of the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) and other equatorial regions on Mars with Edwin Kite as my advisor. Based on the locations with the highest erosion rates, we also provide estimates of the locations in the equatorial regions with shallow (within 1 m) subsurface ice. Read our paper here or Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) abstract here. You can also read my entire thesis and see my code.

Additional undergraduate work

I'm grateful for the opportunity to explore a variety of research projects during my undergraduate career. This included my NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) project "Salton Sea Chlorophyll: A Case Study of How Biology Responds to an Increasingly Hypersaline Environment" with Raphael Kudela at UCSC, a technical review paper about perchlorates on Mars with Pascal Lee at the SETI Institute, environmental quantum computing applications with Gavin Jones at IBM Research, and testing a new detector for the South Pole Telescope with Clarence Chang at Argonne National Laboratory. In undergrad I was excited (and still am!) about a lot of different Earth and space-related topics, so I tried a bunch of things before figuring out what was most fascinating for me. I'm happy to answer any questions about my previous projects and my career path so far–shoot me an email at anli7@uw.edu. Don't be afraid to explore! :)