Hannah Wallace Named 2026 DPS-NSBP Speaker

This post is adapted from a press release from the AAS's Division for Planetary Sciences.

Within the partnership between the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), Earth and Planetary Systems Sciences (EPSS) section, Hannah Wallace has been selected as the newest DPS-NSBP Speaker Awardee. Hannah is a senior studying astronomy–physics and physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She works with Dr. Hannah Zanowski, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, on topics in planetary atmospheres and oceanography with the objective to investigate modern-Earth-like aquaplanets (exoplanets with ~100% ocean coverage).

The DPS-NSBP Speaker Award is part of the DPS partnership with NSBP, which was established in 2021 to jointly represent the interests of planetary scientists and students who identify as members of communities that are critically underrepresented in that discipline. The top EPSS early-career presenter at the NSBP annual conference is selected by the NSBP EPSS chairs. The DPS-NSBP Speaker Awardee is invited by DPS to speak at the following year’s DPS annual meeting, with expenses covered by the DPS.

DPS is thrilled to invite Hannah Wallace to speak at the 58th annual DPS meeting, which will be held in Spokane, WA, 25–30 October 2026. Hannah’s award-winning 2025 NSBP talk, "Increased Pressure and Its Impact on Earthlike Aquaplanets," focused on her use of ROCKE-3D (Resolving Orbital and Climate Keys of Earth and Extraterrestrial Environments with Dynamics), a coarse-resolution general circulation model, to investigate how ocean circulation and thermodynamics would be impacted by changes in atmospheric pressure. Hannah will graduate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in May 2026, and she plans to apply to graduate school in planetary science or astronomy.