15 Facts About Suzanne Imber

Suzanne Mary Imber was born on May 1983 and is a British planetary scientist specialising in space weather at the University of Leicester.

Suzanne Imber studied a 4-year physics degree at Imperial College London, from where she graduated with a first class honours in 2005.

Suzanne Imber captained the University of London Lacrosse team and went on to play for the England under-21s.

Suzanne Imber undertook two internships at NASA during her time at Imperial, working in the Heliophysics Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which steered her in the direction of planetary science.

Suzanne Imber completed her PhD thesis in 2008 on the Auroral and Ionospheric Flow Measurements of Magnetopause Reconnection during Intervals of Northward Interplanetary Magnetic Field, at the University of Leicester.

Suzanne Imber joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 2008 as a NASA research scientist.

Suzanne Imber is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, as well as the only UK member of NASA's MESSENGER Science Team, in recognition of her work studying Mercury's magnetosphere.

Suzanne Imber is a co-investigator on the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer, an instrument designed and built at the University of Leicester, currently on board the European Space Agency's Mercury mission, BepiColombo, which launched on 19 October 2018.

Suzanne Imber endured several challenges, including speaking Russian in a centrifuge after enduring 4.5g, taking part in emergency procedures in an undersea training facility and taking her own blood.

Suzanne Imber won the competition and received a recommendation from Chris Hadfield to join the European Space Agency.

Since winning, Suzanne Imber has launched a public engagement programme in her spare time, personally speaking with over 35,000 school children at hundreds of schools across the country, and giving over 60 public lectures in the course of 12 months.

Suzanne Imber's goal is to raise the aspirations of young people and share her journey and her enthusiasm for her career as a space scientist.

In 2019, Suzanne Imber gave the Claudia Parsons Memorial Lecture at Loughborough University.

Suzanne Imber was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award by the Royal Society in 2021 for her "achievements in the field of planetary science and her well-considered project proposal with a potential for a high impact".

Suzanne Imber is a high-altitude mountaineer who has climbed peaks in Alaska, the Himalayas, and the Andes, working since 2014 with Argentinian explorer Maximo Kausch.