Gretchen Benedix is a professor at Curtin University in Australia. She is an astro-geologist/cosmic mineralogist using meteorites to study the evolution of the solar system.
She received her PhD at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in Geology and Geophysics, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and a Master’s degree in Engineering Sciences. She has been studying planets, asteroids and meteorites for the last 25 years, after a brief stint in particle physics.
Her interests lie in deciphering the geologic processes that affect meteorites and extrapolating this to better understand and constrain the conditions of formation and evolution of the meteorite parent bodies as well as Earth.
Gretchen has been fortunate to be able to search for meteorites around the globe, including 2 expeditions to Antarctica.
She also has an asteroid named for her (6579 Benedix), which will in no way interact with the Earth.
