DrPhilippa Mason

Philippa is an Earth and planetary geologist specialising in the use of satellite imagery to study rocks, minerals, geology, geomorphology and the environment. Her teaching and research also involve the translation of terrestrial techniques in Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and imaging spectroscopy to assist in the understanding of geological features and processes on other Earth-like planets, such as Venus and Mars.

She was appointed by NASA in 2022 as a co-investigating scientist on the VenSAR Science Team (VeST), and in Apr 2025 was appointed by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an Inter-Disciplinary Scientist, and most recently by ESA as a member of the VeraSAR instrument team for the EnVision mission to Venus, in the preparation for launch in 2031. EnVision is essentially an Earth Observation mission heading to Venus; it will image the planet from a near-polar orbit, using a series of sensors, over ~3 years. It is aimed at gaining a better understanding the geology and climate of Venus, our nearest neighbouring planet, helping determine whether it might once have been habitable in its past. 

www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Envision/Envision_factsheet
science.nasa.gov/mission/envision/
www.envisionvenus.eu

Biography

Philippa completed a BSc (Hons) Geology at Southampton University, MSc in Remote Sensing at University College London and PhD at Imperial College London, having spent some time consulting in industry, alongside academic work. She joined the Department of Earth Science & Engineering after my PhD, in 2000 and has been here ever since.

Current Post-Doctoral Researchers:

Dr Yao Gao (funded by UK Space Agency, in support of the ESA/NASA EnVision mission to Venus)

Dr Shubham Awasthi (funded by UK Space Agency, in support of the ESA/NASA EnVision mission to Venus)

Current PhD researchers:

Nikol Davidova (funded by STFC)
Gerard Gallardo i Peres (funded by European Space Agency, Open Space Innovation Platform)
Xu Di (funded by Research Geophysics Academy)
Yiran Zhang (funded by Research Geophysics Academy)
Raul Adriaensen (primary supervisor Matthew Piggott)
Hsuan-Yi Li (primary supervisor James Lawrence, Civil & Environmental Engineering)
Meshal Al-Quraishi (primary supervisor James Lawrence, Civil & Environmental Engineering)
Ahmad Agus Widodo (funded by Indonesian Meteorological Office)
Isabella Zhang (primary supervisor James Lawrence, Civil & Environmental Engineering)

Recently completed PhD research:

Myriam Prasow-Emond (Aug 2026)

Zayad al Zayer (May 2026)

Johnathan Adams (May 2024)
Anthony Carpenter (2024, PDRA at Imperial)
Zixiao Wang (Feb 2024)
Stewart Agar (2023, PDRA at Imperial)
Jennifer Scoular (2021)
Christine Bischoff (2018)
Xue Wan (2015)