Lynnae Quick

Lynnae C. Quick is a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where she is a member of the Space Exploration Sector’s Planetary Exploration Group. Her research focuses on geophysical processes on the Ocean Worlds in our solar system and in extrasolar planetary systems. She applies principles of fluid dynamics and heat transfer to model plume eruptions, cryovolcanic processes and ocean crystallization on the icy moons of the giant planets and on dwarf planet Ceres. Quick also studies silicic volcanism on Venus and the Moon and utilizes geophysical knowledge of the planets and moons in our solar system to characterize the surface environments on Earth-sized extrasolar planets. She is a member of the Europa Clipper, Dragonfly, and OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft mission science teams, and from 2024 to 2025 was a member of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) program office, where she served as the HWO Solar System Lead. From 2020 to 2025 she served as co-chair of the National Society of Black Physicists’ Earth and Planetary Systems Sciences section, and from 2020-2022, was a member of the Ocean Worlds and Dwarf Planets panel for the National Academy of Sciences’ Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey. In 2021 Asteroid 37349 was re-named Lynnaequick in her honor. That same year she was awarded the American Astronomical Society’s Harold C. Urey Prize for outstanding achievement in planetary science by an early career scientist and the Alumni Achievement Award from the College of Science and Technology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. In 2022 Quick received the NASA Early Career Achievement Medal for her work studying the geophysical properties of ocean worlds in our solar system. Quick is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina where she graduated from James Benson Dudley High School and received her B.S. in physics from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She received an M.S. in physics, with a concentration in astrophysics, from The Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. When she’s not working, Quick enjoys spending time with her husband Lamar and their four year old aussie shepherd, Raven.