Cynthia B. Phillips (born 1973)[1] is an American planetary geologist who works for NASA at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
[2] An expert on processing images from space missions to the planets and their moons, and on the geological processes operating within moons,[3] she has studied the effects of asteroid impacts on the surface of Europa,[4] and definitions of non-earth-based life that could apply on places like Europa that are outside the circumstellar habitable zone.
She was an undergraduate at Harvard University, where she studied astronomy, astrophysics, and physics,[2] graduating magna cum laude with an A.B.
Her dissertation, Voyager and Galileo SSI Views of Volcanic Resurfacing on Io and the Search for Geologic Activity on Europa, was supervised by Alfred McEwen.
[2] As well as her research publications, Phillips is a coauthor with Shana Priwer of science popularization books including: