Rhonda Stroud is a materials physicist and planetary scientist with expertise in electron, x-ray and ion beam analysis of materials at the nanoscale. She is a past president of the Microanalysis Society, and a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Meteoritical Society, the Microscopy Society of America and the Microanalysis Society.

In 2022, after serving for over 15 years as the Head of the Nanoscale Materials Section at the US Naval Research Laboratory, Rhonda joined the School of Earth and Space Exploration as Professor and Director of the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies.

She served as a participating scientist on the NASA Stardust Mission, led the Foils Team for the NASA Stardust Mission Interstellar Preliminary Analysis, and was a member of the JAXA Hayabusa2 Mission Fine-grained Mineralogy and Macromolecular Organics Teams.

Her cross-disciplinary expertise in natural and synthetic materials, materials characterization, and sample return missions makes her a sought-after public speaker and subject-matter-expert for US and international organizations.