Dr. Isabel Harrysson Rodrigues is a nanotechnology scientist specializing in fabricating and developing state-of-the-art microdevices, such as electrical components for sensing and detection. Unlike Earth, with its protecting atmosphere, a significant percentage of our solar system provides too harsh surroundings for everyday electronics to survive. To address this, her current research focuses on robust III-V material-based microdevices for the extreme environments found in space.
 
Currently, Isabel Harrysson Rodrigues is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at JPL, NASA, collaborating with Dr. Mina Rais-Zadeh's group (at JPL) in the Microdevices and Sensor Systems’ Microdevice Laboratory, where they are developing sensors and detectors for harsh space environments, such as elevated temperatures (< 600 deg C) and intense radiation. The components will be used mainly for UV detection and magnetic field sensing, providing invaluable science readouts, helping us understand our solar system’s formation, and gathering information for future missions to yet unexplored planetary bodies.

Ultraviolet observations obtained via the UV detector would allow for analyzing auroras on other planets, capturing fast-moving materials tightly orbiting massive stars, and identifying areas of new star formation in nearby galaxies. Observing ultraviolet light also enables the detection of hydrogen, e.g., clouds of hydrogen evaporating from a planet exposed to extreme radiation, offering clues on how planets could form. The magnetometer can help us understand planets' interiors by sensing their magnetic field's direction and strength. It provides a deeper understanding of the planet's magnetosphere, which can significantly affect its surrounding moons, dust, or gas. It could permit insight into internal compositions and dynamics in extreme cold and extreme heat close to the surface of planetary bodies (e.g., Europa, Titan, Mercury, Venus, etc.). Investigating planetary bodies for scientific exploration, such as probing the interior of planets to gain insight into internal compositions, dynamics, and the evolution of the planetary body, has long been a goal and an interest of NASA.

While earning valuable experience during her research visit at Stanford University, in David Goldhaber-Gordon's Group, and her Ph.D. from Chalmers University of Technology, Isabel Harrysson Rodrigues worked on various device fabrication techniques, as well as development and performance of these devices, mainly high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and 2D-materials, such as AlGaAs/InP HEMTs and twisted bilayer graphene, including hexagonal boron nitride. She spent numerous hours in high-quality cleanroom facilities fabricating microdevices for various applications, such as low-noise amplifiers, terahertz biosensing, and fundamental research in carrier transport, spintronics and superconductivity. She also worked on simulations of electron transport, analysis of charge carrier defects affecting device performance, and data analysis of the DC characteristics in various transistor configurations, all pivotal parts of her thesis.

When not involved in research, Isabel Harrysson Rodrigues has pursued sports and art in her spare time, playing high-level soccer for many years and representing Sweden in the national team of footvolley until her move to the US (2023). Staying mentally and physically healthy has always been a consistent interest in her life, where making art has constituted her time to relax and unwind. Upon encouragement to share her art, she created a webpage to display some of her pieces: www.isabelharryssonrodrigues.com. Other key ingredients in her life are spending time with family and loved ones, including her dog, preferably outdoors in the forest or by the beach.