2026 UMBC Research Faculty Excellence Award
Mehdi Benna
Senior Research Scientist, Center for Space Sciences and Technology
Dr. Mehdi Benna is a Senior Research Scientist at UMBC, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he has worked since 2006. His research focuses on planetary magnetospheres, upper atmospheres, and exospheres. He serves as a Co-Investigator on major missions, including Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), and ExoMars; the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE); and MESSENGER to Mercury. He has also led or contributed to the development of numerous spaceborne instruments.
Dr. Benna is the lead for the Lunar Environmental Monitoring Station (LEMS), one of just three instruments selected for deployment on the lunar south pole, when astronauts will will land on the moon with the Artemis IV mission in 2028.
Dr. Benna has authored or co-authored more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and over 200 conference papers and invited presentations. His work spans magnetohydrodynamic modeling, cometary and icy moon environments, radiotomography, and inverse problems. His contributions have been recognized with multiple NASA Individual and Group Achievement Awards.