Dr. Sierra (Weigman) Brown

State University of New York at Fredonia alumna Dr. Sierra (Wiegman) Brown will give the talk, “From Planetary Geochemistry to Indigenous Environmental Policy: Charting Career Paths Across the Cosmos with Code,” on Friday, April 5.

The event is slated for noon in Houghton Hall Room 025. All are welcome to attend.

Dr. Brown is a Staff Scientist and Research Software Engineer at Million Concepts, LLC. She holds a B.S. (2016) in Geophysics and Geochemistry from SUNY Fredonia, and M.S. (2018) and Ph.D. (2022) degrees in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences from Brown University.

Brown’s graduate work focused on remote sensing and geochemical modelling of the Martian surface. She has since performed scientific and technical work for multiple NASA missions, including Curiosity, Perseverance and VIPER. She is the lead developer of the Planetary Data Reader — a tool to read any NASA data with one command — and is a major contributor to multiple other best-in-class planetary science software libraries.

Brown is also an enrolled member of the Shinnecock Nation, and draws on the practice of “Two-Eyed Seeing” to provide unique insights that integrate indigenous and western approaches to knowledge. Since leaving Brown University, she has integrated her native heritage more fully into her work, and currently serves as the Principal Investigator of a NASA Transform to Open Science Training grant entitled “Knowing the Sky: Building Open Science Skills through Native Knowledge Practices.”

She recently received the NASA Space Tech Catalyst Prize for supporting underrepresented groups in space technology development, and plans to direct her future work towards building software that can directly support the environmental justice efforts of indigenous tribes.