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Photo of Magruder, Lori

lori.magruder@austin.utexas.edu
512-471-6069
Office Location: ASE 3.220

Lori Magruder

Associate Professor

Myron L. Begeman Fellowship in Engineering

Department Research Areas:
Orbital Mechanics

Education: Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin

Research Interests: 

  • Remote sensing instrumentation and applications
  • Geospatial data science
  • Spacecraft dynamics, orbital mechanics, and attitude determination

Lori Magruder is a subject matter expert in remote sensing and 3D geospatial data exploitation for Earth science. Dr. Magruder received her bachelor’s degree from The University of Southern California in Aerospace Engineering and her master’s degree from Princeton University in Mechanical an Aerospace Engineering. Her Ph.D. was earned from The University of Texas at Austin with a focus on ground-based validation studies for NASA’s ICESat laser altimetry mission. She has held positions at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory prior to returning to UT Austin as a Senior Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratories. Dr. Magruder was selected to be the ICESat-2 Science Definition Team Leader in 2014 to support mission development and early on-orbit satellite operations. She also is the Principal Investigator for the satellite’s precision pointing determination operational program and geolocation validation studies. Recently, Dr. Magruder was selected by NASA to lead the new ICESat-2 Science Team (2020). In addition to her leadership responsibilities within the mission she will be providing scientific research in bathymetric science discovery and continuing her efforts for data product validation. Dr. Magruder leads many other NASA and the Department of Defense remote sensing programs with her expertise in geospatial topics and applications.

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