Message from Dean Carmala Garzione - August 2023

Dear students, faculty, staff, and friends,

Welcome to another great year at the University of Arizona!

The College of Science is a vibrant community that spans the broad disciplinary domains of mind, brain, and behavioral sciences; life and molecular sciences; physical, Earth, and space sciences; and mathematics and computational sciences. Diverse perspectives from across these strengths fuel wonder and creativity that leads to transformational discoveries. Students, we encourage you to participate in exploration, discovery, and innovation working alongside faculty and staff. We are here to help you make those connections.

This fall, we have a historical event that highlights the leadership potential that we cultivate in our students. The spacecraft mission led by the Lunar and Planetary Lab, OSIRIS-REx, is making its return trip to Earth with the largest sample ever collected in space from an asteroid – asteroid Bennu. During a flyby of Earth on September 24, a capsule carrying this sample will be dropped off to parachute down into the Utah desert. Look out for announcements of events on campus to celebrate this historical sample return, as well as the change in command for an extended mission as the spacecraft continues on to visit the asteroid Apophis in 2030. You can watch here to learn how the culture of support and leadership development in the College of Science has cultivated the missions' lead investigators as they seek to transform our understanding of our Solar System’s formation.  

We welcome you to peruse the College of Science updates in this newsletter and following other exciting news posted here from over the coming months.

Wishing you all a great semester. Bear Down!

Carmala Garzione
Dean, College of Science