Meet the team from the Lee High School

Meet the Lee High School Mentor, Dr. Paul Haynes

Exploring the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest as a kid, Paul Hayne developed a deep curiosity and appreciation for the natural world, which led him to pursue a career in science.  After high school, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in geophysics from Stanford University, where he became inspired by the fantastic images of unexplored worlds beamed back by NASA’s planetary missions.  At Stanford, he completed a thesis on the shape and orientation of the icy shell of Europa — a moon of Jupiter thought to harbor a subsurface ocean.  He then went on to pursue a PhD at UCLA, where he joined the science team of the Diviner Lunar Radiometer onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, which is actively measuring the temperatures and composition of the surface of the Moon.  Now a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech, Dr. Hayne's research focuses on the Moon, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan.  When not engaged in research, he can often be found backpacking in one of California’s many mountain ranges, or riding the waves at one of the state’s famous surf spots.