Dawn Graninger

Dr. Dawn Graninger is a physicist specializing in hypervelocity impacts and hydrodynamic simulations of dynamic material response. She was a co-investigator on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and is involved in studying many aspects of hypervelocity impacts, from the cratering to the flash of light that occurs on impact. Dr. Graninger uses a variety of high-fidelity numerical hydrodynamic simulation tools developed at the Department of Energy to understand how geologic materials and metals respond dynamically, characterizing the resulting crater and ejecta from a hypervelocity impact. For the DART mission, she participated in the Impact Modeling Working Group, where she ran hydrodynamic simulations of the DART spacecraft impacting Dimorphos. Dr. Graninger’s research interests include planetary defense, hydrodynamics simulations, astrochemistry, planetary science, and planetary geology, and her research uses several hydrodynamic simulation codes (CTH, ALE3D, Spheral++) and other data analysis tools such as VisIt to process simulations.