Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship for Johanna Bürger

Johanna Bürger has been awarded the Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship for the academic year 2024-2025. She is a doctoral student and research associate at the Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics at Technische Universität Braunschweig. The fellowship, which is endowed with 10,000 dollars, is awarded annually to up to 30 female doctoral students in the fields of aerospace engineering and space science at an international level.

Johanna Bürger, honoured with the Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship 2024. Photo credit: Kristina Rottig/TU Braunschweig

Johanna Bürger’s research focuses on characterising the physical and thermophysical properties of lunar regolith, a fine-grained material covering the lunar surface, using remote sensing data and numerical models. Her dissertation uses surface temperature data from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer experiment on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). To interpret the data, she is developing a thermophysical model that extends previous work with a more direct simulation of regolith grain size and layering. The model developed will make it possible to predict the grain size and layering of lunar regolith on a global scale. This is of interest for future lunar missions, but also to learn more about the geological history of the Moon.

Close links with space research in the USA

As part of her research, Johanna Bürger also has close links with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in Boulder, USA, where she spent several weeks in 2022. She is also part of the Diviner instrument team, which gives her first-hand experience of the instrument and the scientific work with the instrument data. So far, she has mainly participated via videoconference in the six-monthly team meetings, most of which take place in the USA. “I look forward to attending more team meetings in person and presenting my work at more international conferences. The Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship has opened many doors for me.“

In addition to her research activities, Johanna Bürger is part of the Europlanet Early Career Network, where she leads a team that organises activities for young scientists at the annual Europlanet Science Congress. She also campaigns for equal opportunities in education and is part of the site management team of “studytutors Braunschweig”, an organisation that offers free tutoring for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Prior to her doctorate, Johanna Bürger completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Physics at TU Braunschweig in 2019 and 2022. She particularly appreciates the excellent supervision and support as well as the informal atmosphere at the Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics.

About the award

The Amelia Earhart Fellowship was founded in 1938 in honour of the famous pilot Amelia Earhart. Since the programme was launched in 1938, the Zonta Foundation has awarded more than 1,700 Amelia Earhart Fellowships to over 1,305 women from 77 countries.