SUNY Oswego alumnus, NASA engineer to speak Oct. 23 about Mars mission

Kenny Roffo, a 2017 SUNY Oswego graduate who is now a NASA software engineer, will return to his alma mater to discuss “InSight: The Next Mars Lander” at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Room 132 of the Shineman Center.

The talk -- part of the college’s Science Today lecture series -- is free and open to the public.

Roffo is part of the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California working with the InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Mars Lander, which launched in May and is almost finished with its journey to Mars. The lander will enter the Martian atmosphere and descend to the surface in late November to investigate the deep interior of Mars.

InSight will transport five main science instruments to Mars, including a seismometer and a heat flow probe. Roffo’s presentation will discuss the inspiration for this mission, as well as what questions InSight will try to answer, and how it will do so.

During his time at Oswego, Roffo -- who studied physics, computer science and mathematics at the college -- had first an internship then a co-op placement at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “On the first day of my co-op, they offered me a job after graduation,” he recalled.

Roffo made the most of his time at Oswego, also performing research abroad in Germany and India, staying active as a tutor and serving as president of the Math Club and treasurer of the Astronomy Club.

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For more information on the lecture or the Science Today series, contact Elizabeth Wilcox at elizabeth.wilcox@oswego.edu.