Education: Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
Research Interests:
- Remote sensing instrumentation and applications
- Geospatial data science
- Spacecraft dynamics, orbital mechanics, and attitude determination
Lori Magruder is an associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin and holds the Myron L. Begeman Fellowship in Engineering. Dr. Magruder is a subject matter expert in remote sensing remote sensing instrumentation, implementation, validation and 3D geospatial data exploitation. She also serves as the director of the UT Center for Space Research, an organized research unit in the Cockrell School of Engineering. Dr. Magruder received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California in aerospace engineering and her master’s degree from Princeton University in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Her Ph.D. was earned from UT Austin with a focus on ground-based validation studies for NASA’s ICESat mission. She has held positions at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory prior to returning to UT Austin. After 10 years of Science Team leadership on the NASA ICESat-2 mission, Dr. Magruder has moved onto positions on other climate-driven remote sensing science teams. Dr. Magruder leads many other NASA research efforts in addition to supporting programs through the Department of Defense with her expertise in geospatial topics and the unique link she brings between engineering and multi-disciplinary science applications.
