Our Team Member

stuart.robbins@swri.org

Stuart Robbins

Principal Scientist
Solar System Science and Exploration Division

About

Dr. Stuart Robbins’ expertise spans impact crater and image processing from Mercury through Pluto.  Robbins manually compiled world-recognized impact crater databases of the moon and Mars, and Robbins uses impact crater populations to understand geologic processes.  Robbins’ image processing has been used to construct cartographically controlled mosaics throughout the solar system and produce high-quality, daily color mosaics of Mars that span more than a quarter-century.  Robbins played a critical role in landing site hazards for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu, is a New Horizons Co-I and DPI on its REX instrument, and is a Co-I on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s LAMP instrument and a Lucy mission collaborator.  An underlying research theme is, “How well do we know what we think we know?” which manifests through repeatability studies, studies that investigate biases in feature identification and measurement based on camera and lighting geometry, proposing modern analytical tools that better represent data than standard methods, and quantitatively exploring assumptions that others take for granted.  Robbins received a BS in astronomy from Case Western Reserve University, an MS in astrophysics from University of Colorado – Boulder, and Ph.D. in geophysics from University of Colorado – Boulder.