An associate professor in Geology and Geophysics (G&G) at Louisiana State University, Suniti Karunatillake has led G&G’s planetary science lab since 2013. In using compositional remote sensing of planetary surfaces as windows to geology and habitability, Karunatillake's group targets unknowns of the rock cycle on bodies like Mars, for example the formation of sedimentary rocks, soil evolution in the presence of volcanic gases, and provenance of exotic salts like perchlorates in planetary soils. Underlying methods include gamma ray spectroscopy (GRS) and alpha particle X-ray spectroscopy (APXS). Karunatillake completed his BA at Wabash College, IN (2001); PhD at Cornell University, NY (2008) advised by Dr. Steve Squyres; and postdoctoral research at Stony Brook University, NY (2011) advised by Dr. Scott McLennan. In the process, he has been a member of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Mission and the Mars Exploration Rover mission. He has also served as a CoI on a gamma-neutron integrated nuclear spectroscopy payload proposed to Mars2020; led concept development for an englacial sampling mission to Mars for the 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey; and contributed geochemical interpretations for textbooks like "Remote Compositional Analysis: Techniques for Understanding Spectroscopy, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry of Planetary Surfaces". Karunatillake's research has been funded by NASA's Mars Data Analysis Program and the Louisiana Space Consortium.

Profile: https://www.lsu.edu/science/geology/people/faculty/karunatillake.php