From Earth to Exoplanets: Studying Oceans Across the Universe
June 18, 2025
What do Earth’s oceans share with an icy moon orbiting Saturn? For Hannah Zanowski, both might be crucial in addressing a key question: What makes a planet habitable? Zanowski combines her passion for oceanography and astronomy to explore this question by modeling earth and exoplanet oceans and climate.
Zanowski, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences (AOS), studies polar oceanography, using climate models to examine the future of our planet’s oceans.
“My research focuses on polar oceanography and the physics of how our own planet’s ocean works,” Zanowski says. “But truthfully, my first love is astronomy and astrophysics, and to some degree, I should probably have my PhD in astrophysics.”
Read the full College of Letters & Science magazine article by Margaret Shreiner, May 28, 2025