Dr. Meenakshi “Mini” Wadhwa is Director and Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Her research group is best known for developing novel methodologies to investigate the time scales of processes in the early Solar System. Other research areas include understanding the abundance and origin of water and other volatiles on rocky bodies in the Solar System.

Dr. Wadhwa has been involved in a number of NASA planetary science missions, including as co-investigator on the Genesis mission and as collaborator on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. She has taken part in expeditions of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) Program, for which she received the Antarctica Service Medal. Dr. Wadhwa was a member of both the NASA Advisory Council’s Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS) and Planetary Protection Subcommittee (PPS), and was Chair of the NASA Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials (CAPTEM) analysis group. She also served as a member of the NAS Space Studies Board (SSB) and SSB Executive Committee.

Dr. Wadhwa became a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2019, The Explorers Club in 2012, The Wings WorldQuest in 2007 and the Meteoritical Society in 2006. She is currently serving as President of the Meteoritical Society. She is a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Nier Prize. In recognition of her contributions to planetary science, Asteroid 8356 was named 8356 Wadhwa by the International Astronomical Union.

Dr. Wadhwa earned her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis.