Team
Andrew M. Annex
Andrew Annex is a Planetary Science Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University. Before starting his Ph.D., he was an intern for the CIRS instrument team for the Cassini-Huygens mission and was an undergraduate researcher interested in the photometric properties of the South Polar Terrain of Enceladus. Andrew has research interests in machine learning, remote sensing, geomorphology, topography, and the subsurface of ocean worlds.
Bruce Wyatt Boles
I am a graduate student at Montana State University in the Molecular Bioscience Program. I study the microbial ecology in cold regions of the globe in order to better understand these microorganisms implications for Astrobiology.
Chase Chivers
Chase Chivers is a 5th year Planetary Science Ph.D. candidate. His interests include planetary ices, geophysics of icy satellites, ice dynamics, and astrobiology. At Tech, he aims to understand the internal physical processes that create the geomorphology observed on Europa and icy bodies elsewhere through observational and numerical modeling techniques
Charlie Detelich
I’m a member of the Europa Clipper - Europa Imaging System (EIS) team working on instrument and science operation center development. I’m broadly interested in planetary surface processes, tectonics, and geophysics of icy moons. I received my M.S. in Applied Geological Sciences from University of Alaska Anchorage where I investigated whether fractures of Europa were reflective of global tidal forcing or of shearing associated with plate tectonics. I have a B.S. in Geology and two minors from NC State in meteorology and in graphic communications. At NC State, I researched the geomorphology Iapetus’s (moon of Saturn) equatorial ridge.
Sabrina Elkassas
Sabrina is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Chemical Oceanography. Her current research focuses on studying microbial life from extreme environments, such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents and terrestrial soda lakes, as analogs for life possible on other celestial bodies with oceans. Her work is a mix of culture-based techniques, growing an alkaliphilic methanogenic archaeon isolate, and molecular/bioinformatic techniques with an emphasis on determining community composition and function through metagenomics, RNA-Stable Isotope Probing (RNA-SIP), and metatranscriptomics. She is co-advised by Dr. Julie Huber and Dr. Jeff Seewald at WHOI.
Patrick C Gray
I'm currently a PhD candidate with Dave Johnston in the Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Group at the Duke University Marine Laboratory and a Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST).
My doctoral research uses satellites, drones, and in-situ optical techniques to understand the interplay of physics and ecology in the ocean. Combining remote sensing, data science, and biological oceanography I lean on machine learning for parsing large amounts remote and in-situ data. I'm very interested in tools and research that’ll be relevant for both Earth science and exploring other oceans within our solar system.
Rachel Harris
I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Girguis Deep Sea Microbiology Lab. My research explores the biogeochemistry and ecophysiology of SLiMEs – Subsurface Lithoautotrophic Microbial Ecosystems – as a proxy for investigating the astrobiological potential of other worlds. My work often combines multiple tools, including tracer experiments, imaging, 'omics, and metabolic modeling, to explore the habitable limits of life and the metabolic strategies it employs to survive the biotic fringe. When I'm not working with SLiMEs, methanogenic archaea (methane-producing microbes) are my favorite model organisms for astrobiology-related research.
Kristin Johnson-Finn
I am currently a research scientist at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo, Japan. My research focuses on the interactions of organic compounds with different minerals to form additional reaction pathways, mostly at hydrothermal conditions. I pursue these questions with an expanding array of experimental (hydrothermal, electrochemical, VSM, etc.) and thermodynamic techniques. I am interested in abiotic and potentially prebiotic reactions available through organic / mineral interactions in the icy moon environments of Europa and Enceladus. I want to unravel the abiotic signals from the biotic signals in these environments in the search for life on ocean worlds.
Sarah Lamm
Sarah Lamm is a PhD Student at University of Kansas in Geology. Her recent masters research was creating a Raman calibration for chlorite minerals; which will have applications for newer Mars Rovers. She was a team member on Curiosity Rover and worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory for three summers. Lamm also worked at NASA JPL in the Origins and Habitability Laboratory using machine learning to classify iron minerals spectra's of mission ready techniques. Lamm graduated from Kansas State University in 2018 with bachelors degrees in chemistry, geology, and geography. Lamm was selected as a 2019 Mars Generation 24 Under 24 Leader in STEAM & Space, and the 2020 K-State Student Sci Comm Winner.
Justin Lawrence
5th year planetary science Ph.D. candidate and Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) with Dr. Britney Schmidt’s Planetary Habitability & Technology Lab. Research interests fall at the intersection of astrobiology, oceanography, analog environments, solar system science, and remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles (ROV/AUVs). Current efforts integrate ROV Icefin exploration (@icefinrobot) with microbiology and oceanographic sampling to understand habitability in sub-ice oceans on Earth, towards robotic exploration of Europa. Has spent ~1.5 years over six field seasons in Antarctica since 2012 and sailed ~7000 nm aboard research ships with Sea Education Association (SEA).
Angela Marusiak
As a postdoc at JPL, I study planetary seismology, with a focus on Mars, icy ocean worlds, and our Moon. Currently, I am a science collaborator on the InSight mission to Mars and an affiliate with the Dragonfly mission to Titan. Through a combination of analog field work and modeling, I aim to help current and future NASA missions. My work focuses on determining uncertainties in detection of planetary interior layers (ice shell, cores, etc), constraining seismicity and its origins, and testing out flight candidate instrumentation.
Sara Miller
I am originally from San Diego, California, where my family farms avocados and citrus. Before joining Cornell University’s Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Ph.D. program, I earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program award, my research at Cornell with Professor Britney Schmidt focuses on modeling the fluid dynamics of the subsurface ocean at Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Outside of research, I am passionate about running, hiking, scuba diving, and horseback riding.
Mariam Naseem
Mariam is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and is also collaborating on Ocean Worlds research with a scientist at NASA Goddard. She has a global and multi-disciplinary background, having worked as a commercial space consultant, as a technology strategist in the Enterprise Innovation team at one of the largest banks in Canada, as a field engineer on an oil rig in Russia, a manufacturing engineer in a Product Development center in Texas and as a business development manager for a Toronto-based Quantum computing startup.
Kirtland J Robinson
I am developing a framework whereby organic reaction species can be used as geochemical tracers for subsurface aqueous environments. Organic reaction species can be mobilized from environments that are difficult to directly access and brought to more accessible sampling locations, bearing signatures of their source conditions. Constraining subsurface aqueous conditions within icy ocean worlds will improve assessments of whether these environments can support life.
I conduct my work using hydrothermal experiments, thermodynamic and kinetic reaction modeling, as well as collecting and analyzing environmental samples to ground truth those models.
My other research interests include prebiotic chemistry and biosignature detection.
Laura E. Rodriguez
Dr. Laura Rodriguez is an organic geochemist and data scientist aiming to understand how geologic activity and the physio-chemical properties of oceans drive habitability and facilitates origins of life events on ocean worlds, including early Earth. Specifically, she studies the chemical evolution of CHONPS as it relates to the formation of genetic precursors using laboratory experiments and real-world hydrothermal vent samples. In parallel, she is developing data science methodologies to characterize the organic-geochemistry of such samples using mission-ready techniques. Dr. Rodriguez received her B.S. in Geochemistry (Rice University, 2013) and a dual-title Ph.D. in Geosciences and Astrobiology (Penn State, 2019).
Melissa Sedler
Melissa's research interests lie in geochemical analogs for planetary environments and the astrobiological implications of these conditions
Elizabeth Spiers
Elizabeth Spiers is a PhD Candidate at Georgia Tech studying thermal and geochemical coupling and fluxes within the interior of Europa throughout its evolution. By understanding how thermal and chemical processes work together as a system within the interior, the potential for life and habitability at Europa can be better quantified. She has additional experience in mission design work having been a part of Georgia Tech’s (Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa) VERNE concept vehicle team and the Principal Investigator for a JPL Planetary Science Summer School feasibility study for a New Frontiers mission to Enceladus, called Tiger.
Kevin Trinh
Kevin is a PhD student at the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University. He is interested in the formation, evolution, and potential habitability of icy moons. Funded by NASA FINESST, his doctoral research concerns the internal differentiation and evolution of Europa, along with its consequences on ocean composition and redox state.
