Dr. Rhiannon Mayne is the research lead for the Native Meteorite project. She is a non-Native American immigrant who hails originally from the United Kingdom. A space nerd from birth, she realized early that a career as an Astronaut was out of reach when she became travel sick on a swing and decided instead to study it from afar. After a Career Advisor in High School told her she would never get a job in Astrophysics or Space Studies, Rhiannon went to get her BSc. Hons in Geology from Edinburgh University, where she fell in love with the Geological Sciences, but never stopped looking up at the night sky. In her final year, a visiting lecturer came to talk about meteorites and Rhiannon realized she could study space after all and, even better, she could hold it in her hands! She went on to get her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee and spent one year as a postdoc at the Smithsonian, before joining Texas Christian University (TCU) in 2009. She wears many hats at TCU as the Oscar and Juanita Monnig Endowed Chair of Meteoritics and Planetary Science, the Curator and Educator of the Oscar Monnig Meteorite Collection and Gallery, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. Sustainability Sciences.

Rhiannon’s research explores the processes that occurred during the early history of our Solar System, with a primary focus on understanding the formation of differentiated bodies (those with a core, mantle, crust structure). In her role as Curator of the Monnig Meteorite Collection, she is solely responsible for the development and implementation of all the education and public outreach efforts of the Monnig Meteorite Gallery. This work sparked an interest in informal (free-choice) education and a desire to improve the inclusivity, diversity, equitability, accessibility, and justice within planetary science. When not working, Rhiannon is at home with her family in a house that is never quiet or tidy. She loves to read, cook, craft, watch bad TV shows, and be outdoors, but isn’t allowed to do any garden work after breaking her wrist using a shovel several years ago.