KINGSTON, R.I. – Nov. 2, 2026 – Nearly a half century ago, NASA broke ground by reaching for the stars and beyond with its first Voyager missions when Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Since then, the two spacecraft have become the furthest-traveling, human-made objects in history, crossing the edge of the solar system and into interstellar space.
Jamie Sue Rankin, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Voyager mission, knows all about the science of interstellar exploration from the vantage point of the Voyager spacecrafts. She will visit the University of Rhode Island on Tuesday, Nov. 10, to delve into the history of this science in her URI Honors Colloquium lecture.
Rankin’s talk, titled “Science at the Stellar Shores: Sampling the Reams Between the Sun and the Stars,” will also share surveying surprises, discoveries, curiosities and lessons learned from humanity’s longest-lasting mission.
Hosted by the Honors Program, URI’s premier lecture series examines the science of outer space. Rankin will speak at 5:30 p.m. at Edwards Hall on the Kingston Campus as part of the fall colloquium series, “Interstellar Exploration: Journey Beyond Your Limits.” Rankin’s talk will also be livestreamed on the colloquium’s website.
Rankin earned her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2019, where she witnessed firsthand the historic moment when humans became interstellar explorers through the Voyager missions. Her doctoral thesis was among the first to contribute to this new groundbreaking science.
Along with her work at NASA, Rankin also is a research scientist at Princeton University. There, she studies the transport and acceleration of cosmic rays, energetic particles and plasma throughout the heliosphere—a vast protective bubble carved out by the sun’s wind—and surrounding interstellar environment.
Other NASA missions that Rankin played a role in include the Parker Solar Probe, which has made the closest measurements ever taken of the Sun, and NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe mission, which launched in September 2025. On IMAP, she serves as instrument lead for the Solar Wind and Pickup Ion, which measures solar wind plasma and pickup ions originating from the interstellar wind. She led SWAPI’s development from early prototyping through flight qualification, delivery, commissioning, and early science operations.
Rankin’s lecture will be followed on Tuesday, Nov. 17, by Marc Kuchner, citizen science officer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. A full roster of colloquium speakers and sponsors can be found on the Honors Colloquium website.
This year’s URI Honors Colloquium is led by the Department of Physics, bringing forth thought-provoking conversations that bridges cutting-edge science and the boundless imagination of science fiction. The series concludes in December with a lecture on achieving the impossible with outer space.
Hosted by the University’s Honors Program, the annual URI Honors Colloquium is free and open to the public. To see recordings of this year’s speakers, or past colloquiums, visit the Honors Colloquium Archives. Sign up here for more information and reminders for colloquium events or by emailing urihonors@etal.uri.edu.