Dr. Helen Fricker is a Professor of Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, one of the world's most important centers for global earth science research and education. Prior to her current role, Dr. Fricker was a science team member for NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); she is currently the science team lead for ICESat-2, and Principle Investigator (PI) for NASA's Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE) mission. In this episode, we pick Helen’s brain about spaceborne lidar altimetry missions, some of the amazing science and research projects they support, and what’s over the horizon from a development perspective.