Jennifer Harris Trosper

Jennifer Harris Trosper is an American aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. During her 30-year career at JPL, Trosper has occupied crucial positions in engineering management pertaining to every spacecraft that has traversed the Martian surface. Because of her leadership and engineering expertise, Trosper has appeared on broadcast media outlets as an authority in development and execution of missions to Mars.

Early years and education

Jennifer Trosper grew up in Fostoria, Ohio and graduated from Elmwood High School in Bloomdale, Ohio. She received degrees in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California.

Career

During her tenure at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Trosper was assigned increasing levels of responsibilities in Mars related missions:
She served as an attitude control operations engineer on the 1997 Cassini mission, and as a testbed and operations engineer as well as flight director for the 1996-97 Mars Pathfinder mission. For the 2001 Mars Odyssey missions, she served as the operations development manager.
In 2003, Trosper became a project system engineer and mission manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers.
During the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover expeditions, she served as deputy project manager and mission manager.
For the Mars 2020 Perseverance (rover) mission, Trosper held multiple leadership positions that included mission system development manager, project systems engineering lead, integrated systems engineering lead, and project manager.

Scientific presentations and media

Conferences

Podcasts

Driven to Mars

Radio and television

Jennifer Trosper from Jet Propulsion Lab, KHTS (AM), Santa Clarita, CA
LA Influential: Still Reaching For The Stars – Jennifer Trosper, KCAL-TV, Los Angeles, CA
NASA project lead talks success of Perseverance landing on Mars and what's next, Good Morning America
Roving with Perseverance: Findings from one year on Mars, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Theodore von Kármán Lecture Series

Select appearances on C-SPAN have included:

Mars Spirit Rover Landing Status
Mars Rover Missions: Crew Experiences
Mars Curiosity Rover Mission Update
End of Mission for Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity
NASA News Conference on Landing of Mars Rover ''Perseverance''

Videos

Curiosity Rover Report: A Taste of Mount Sharp. NASA Science – Mars Exploration

Feature film

Good Night Oppy – On-screen participant in the 2022 feature-length documentary that tells the story of Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and their respective 6- and 14-year exploration of the Martian surface.

Awards and recognition

12485 jenniferharris – An asteroid in the main asteroid belt that was discovered on April 7, 1997, by the NEAT program at the Haleakalā Observatory. It was named for Jennifer Harris Trosper who was flight director for Mars Pathfinder when it landed on July 4, 1997.
Verizon Academic All-America Hall of Fame, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Fellow – "For exceptional leadership and technical expertise in mission operations development and execution for missions to the Martian surface".
American Society of Civil Engineers Columbia Medal – "...for a distinguished career working on every rover that has ever driven on Mars..."