Dante Loretta

Where did we come from?

And where are we going?

What does our future hold for us?

So I got my PhD in planetary science.

I studied meteorites and the chemistry of meteorites.

Very, very focused study about how sulfur got into the Earth.

And it was a great study.

And then I came here in 2001.

And for the first decade, I was a chemist studying cosmochemistry.

And this will come back later in the presentation, I think, in a very fun way.

So I created a laboratory group called the Nine Circles, remembering this was 2001, so Pluto was still a planet back then, and so we had nine planets in our solar system at the time, and those of you who are literature buff also know, what do you know nine circles from?

from Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio and Paradiso, right?

There's nine circles of hell.

And so I thought that was a pretty cool way to kind of capture both the planetary science and the more humanity aspect of what I'm doing.

So the group grew.

I attracted students and staff members.

six of us to 2011, you know, where there's almost 20 of us working together on these great problems and I really enjoy working with the younger students and still do.

It's one of my favorite parts of the job, talking to them, opening their minds to the possibilities, career possibilities and these big questions that we ask ourselves and really enabling and encouraging them to pursue these kinds of careers.

The person who hired me, and I apologize, this is a very difficult slide for me, Mike,

was my mentor.