Emily Klonicki – Ference
NASA Engineer and Doctoral Student based in Los Angeles, CA.
Missions and Research
My doctoral thesis work under Dr. Tina Treude at University of California, Los Angeles focuses on the microorganisms and biogeochemical processes that affect the deep-sea methanosphere to better constrain the global carbon budget. We study methane seeps using the HOV Alvin (WHOI/Navy).
In the Treude Lab I also study Ocean Worlds and ancient Earth Ocean analogues to better bound the habitability of extraterrestrial worlds and potential biosignatures. We use Green Lake, a permanately stratified system in Fayetteville New York, as our study site.
I am a Planetary Protection Engineer for NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission. The spacecraft will investigating Europa’s habitability through multiple flyby observations. The expected launch window is October 2024.
Much of my JPL work focused on developing new platforms to explore Icy Moons. I was a science systems engineer and instrumentation lead for JPL’s Probe Using Radioisotopes for Icy Moons Exploration (PRIME). This technology concept aims to explore the interior oceans of Ocean Worlds.
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As a systems engineer for the NASA Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) program, I worked under the Systems Formulation office to support new technology development.
For the Europa Lander mission concept, I interfaced between the science and engineering teams to constrain the likely surface conditions and properties of Europa, which will aid the development of future landed missions.
In The News
About Emily
Emily is a Planetary Protection engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Doctoral Student at the University of California Los Angeles. She principally works on the flag-ship class Europa Clipper mission, developing biological contamination prevention plans, verifying hardware cleanliness, archiving microorganisms and working in cleanrooms with the spacecraft. Additionally, she has supported the Europa Lander mission concept as a Science Systems engineer, the Radioisotope Power Source Program as a Systems engineer, and was a science team member of JPL’s PRIME, a subsurface platform concept that aims to explore the interior oceans of Ocean Worlds.
Emily obtained her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh with minors in Environmental Engineering and Chemistry. She obtained her M.S. in Geochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles where she is currently perusing her PhD. Her research focuses on the microorganisms and geochemistry that effect the deep-sea methanosphere to better constrain marine methane consumption and emission. In addition, she investigates biogeochemical processes in early Earth Ocean analogues to provide a glimpse into Earth’s evolutionary history and better bound the habitability of extraterrestrial worlds.
Emily.F.Klonicki@jpl.nasa.gov