Dr. Steffl is a planetary scientist specializing in the UV spectroscopy of solar system objects and observations of the Pluto system. He has published eight technical papers in refereed journals on the subjects of the Io plasma torus, Pluto and its satellites, and the Jovian aurora. His Ph.D. dissertation is entitled “The Io plasma torus during the Cassini encounter with Jupiter: Temporal, radial and azimuthal variations”.

Primarily an observationalist, Dr. Steffl has observed with and analyzed data from a variety of ground-based (Subaru, Keck, Gemini, VLT, McMath-Pierce [Solar], and the Hooker 100” [Mt. Wilson] telescopes) and space-based instrumentation (UVIS on NASA’s Cassini, ACS on the Hubble Space Telescope, ALICE on ESA’s Rosetta, and SPICAM on ESA’s Mars Express).  While at the University of Colorado he worked extensively with the Cassini UVIS team to develop calibration and data reduction techniques as well as to analyze data from the Jupiter encounter. He is currently actively involved in observation planning, pipeline development, and data analysis for the ALICE instruments aboard Rosetta and New Horizons and the LRO Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP). He also serves as liaison between the New Horizons mission and the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS).