Dr. Ricardo Arevalo Jr. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at UMD, and Director of the M-CLASS Laboratory. He has expertise in the advancement of in situ methods of chemical analysis, particularly: magnetic sector, Orbitrap, time-of-flight, and linear ion trap mass spectrometry; laser ablation and desorption sample processing; and, electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). His scientific research focuses on the analysis of planetary materials (meteorites and analog samples), establishing compositional models of planetary interiors, and characterizing the biosignature preservation potential of different mineral phases. He is the PI of the ICEE 2/CORALS, DALI/CRATER, and PICASSO/Miniature ICPMS investigations, and served as a member of the SAM Science Team and the Product Development Lead (PDL) for the mass spectrometer subsystem of the MOMA instrument on ExoMars. He maintains a role on the MOMA Science Team and the Steering Committee for the NASA Network for Life Detection (NfoLD).

Lucas earned a B.Sc. in Geology and a minor in Chemistry at the University of Florida. Now as a Ph.D. student he is interested in exploring and understanding other planetary bodies in our solar system such as the icy worlds and Earth’s Moon. His research interests include geochemistry, analytical chemistry, petrology, and astrobiology. He is also passionate in learning about spaceflight instrumentation in order to provide in-situ chemical data that will aid in the understanding of the evolution of our solar system’s bodies. Outside of work he likes to go hiking and to weightlift and he hopes to amass the best mineral and rock collection in the laboratory.

Maddy Raith is a first year PhD student at UMD, majoring in geology and minoring in planetary sciences. She is interested in studying planetary geochemistry, mineralogy, and spaceflight instrumentation. She started research with M-Class in Fall 2020 working on laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) to investigate the concentrations of key trace elements in mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB). She has also examined the first-row transition elements to understand the composition of the depleted MORB mantle. Her senior thesis project focused on the mineralogical effects on organic detectability in mars analog sediments from iceland. When she is not in the lab, Maddy enjoys playing ice hockey, baking, and hanging out with her cat Hazel.