Roles and subjects
UK Space Agency Mars Science Fellow and Lecturer in Atmospheric Physics / Planetary Science
Contact
Academic Background
Dr Olsen grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, near the mountain ranges in western Canada, and began his academic career with a research-based MSc at the University of Alberta supporting the construction of a dark matter experiment. He moved to Toronto, Ontario to work on the high-resolution Fourier transform spectrometer for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), and earned his PhD from the
University of Toronto in 2016 with Prof. Kimberly Strong. After NASA withdrew from the ExoMars mission and the TGO was reconfigured, Dr Olsen moved to Paris to work with Dr. François Forget at LMD on Martian water ice clouds using the Mars Express OMEGA imaging spectrometer, and with Dr. Franck Montmessin at LATMOS on retrieval software for the new, LATMOS-led TGO instrument: the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS). During this time, he was the recipient of a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. ACS made its first observations of the Martian atmosphere in April, 2018, with Dr Olsen at the forefront of the data analysis.
Undergraduate Teaching
- Second-year Physics (electromagnetism and optics)
Postgraduate Teaching
- MPhys projects
Research Interests
As a Co-Investigator of the ACS instrument on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Dr Olsen is searching the Martian atmosphere for signs of life and active volcanism. While methane, a possible sign of life, is not detected by this cutting-edge instrument, Dr Olsen did discover HCl, a possible sign of active magmatic activity! He is working on characterising the inventory of gases detected with ExoMars and attempting to unravel the red planet’s atmospheric chemistry, where HCl comes from, and what it means to not find methane.
Hobbies
At times a competitive skier (moguls) and sailor (International-14).
Links
Subject notes for courses taught at Jesus College:
See also the Department of Physics website and Kevin’s departmental profile.