Dr. Livio Tornabene is a SETI and Western University Research Scientist, as well as an Adjunct Professor at WesternU.  Dr. Tornabene has over 25 years of experience with planetary missions, and maintains involvement, as a science team member with the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on the 2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and more recently as Co-Investigator on the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) on the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter and on the both the Panoramic Camera (PanCam) and Enfys spectrometer on the 2028-29 ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. He has provided mission operations training to over 20 individuals through his involvement with MRO/HiRISE and TGO/CaSSIS, which he uses to teach students and other staff about the intricacies of planning and optimizing high-resolution VNIR imaging or Mars.

In general, Tornabene employs a remote sensing data synthesis approach to investigate and answer geologic questions about terrestrial planetary bodies. His primary science focus is on surface processes, particularly impact cratering as a geologic process and the origin, evolution, and aqueous alteration of planetary crusts with emphasis on Mars. The datasets that he most often employs include visible-near infrared high spatial resolution images (morphology/mapping); moderate to high spatial resolution stereo image-derived Digital Terrain or Elevation Models (3D geometry and morphometry) and multispectral and hyperspectral datasets spanning visible to thermal infrared wavelengths (composition, physical and thermophysical properties of surfaces). Besides this, his work more recently focuses on CaSSIS image simulation, color calibration, empirical corrections for reducing atmospheric scatter and isolating surface signals, and the development and production of higher-level data products for CaSSIS.