Planetesimals: Early Differentiation and Consequences for Planets

Linda T. Elkins-Tanton is the Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Her research focusses on the evolution of terrestrial planets and the relationships between Earth and life on Earth. Elkins-Tanton is a two-time National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow. She won a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2008, the Explorers Club Lowell Thomas prize in 2010, and in 2013 was named the Astor Fellow at the University of Oxford. She co-edited Volcanism and Global Environmental Change (Cambridge, 2015), and has written a six-book reference series entitled The Solar System. In 2012 she was honored with an asteroid named 8252 Elkins-Tanton.

Benjamin P. Weiss is a Professor of Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chair of the Program in Planetary Sciences within the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Weiss' research interests include the formation, evolution and history of terrestrial planets and small bodies. Weiss was awarded the Macelwane Medal in 2009 and was the 2003 winner of the Francis and Milton Clauser Doctoral Prize at the California Institute of Techmology. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2012 he was honored with an asteroid named 8069 Benweiss.