My research focuses on spectroscopy to constrain the composition, origin, and evolution of various Solar System objects. My efforts have centered on the mineralogy and morphology of comets, asteroids, meteorites, and the Moon, with occasional diversions to Mars and environmental monitoring of the Earth. I am the director of UMD's Small Bodies Group (SBG): a thriving collaboration of researchers and computer scientists working to understand comets and asteroids – the building blocks of planets – using a variety of telescopic and spacecraft data and archiving these data for future generations.

I have been involved in numerous planetary missions including currently the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and Lunar-VISE a rover that will explore a volcanic dome on the Moon. Previously, I was the Deputy PI for the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI) to comet Hartley 2, PS for the Dawn Mission at Vesta, and Co-I for the Deep Impact and Stardust NExT missions to comet Tempel 1 (including the first planetary scale impact experiment), Moon Mineralogy Mapper, and DART (which successfully demonstrated that a kinetic impactor can alter the orbit of threatening asteroids). I was also the PI for the Comet Hopper (CHopper) mission, one of three finalists in the 2012 Discovery mission selection.

For ten years before coming to UMD, I worked for SAIC's (Science Applications International Corporation's) Advanced Technology Applications Division, where I was Chief Scientist and a member of SAIC's Corporate Science and Technology Council working on Earth and planetary remote sensing projects.
ADS Listing for Jessica Sunshine
Astro-PH Listing for Jessica Sunshine