Skip to content

About WHOI
A-Z WHOI Labs/Groups Listing

Team
- Team
- Working Groups
- FLOW
News & Events
Join
Jobs

Officers

Laura E. Rodriguez

Lead

Staff Scientist
Lunar and Planetary Institute

Universities Space Research Association

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).

AltaHowellsOcean

Alta Howells

Co-Lead

NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center

Dr. Howells is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at NASA Ames. Her primary goal is to aid life detection efforts by developing models that can estimate biological distribution, activity, and biomass production in water-rock hosted ecosystems on Earth and other ocean worlds. To better approximate estimations of biological activity and biomass production elsewhere, she is characterizing growth parameters of Earth methanogens under conditions that reflect other ocean worlds, such as Europa and Enceladus.

Mariam picture - Mariam Naseem

Mariam Naseem

Co-Lead

Independent Researcher

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.

Caitlin Ahrens

Communications Chair

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Dr. Caitlin Ahrens is a planetary geomorphologist and geophysicist motivated to understand volcanism on many planetary bodies, from the Moon to Pluto. She also studies complex subsurface interactions that form a variety of geologic processes on icy bodies, especially those that have various oceanic structures. She combines experimental cryogenic techniques and remote sensing at these icy bodies to better characterize icy geophysical environments. Dr. Ahrens received her B.S. in astrophysics and geology (West Virginia University, 2015) and a Ph.D. in Space and Planetary Sciences (University of Arkansas, 2020). She’s currently a postdoc at NASA GSFC.

rocket_cupcake - Elizabeth Spiers

Elizabeth Spiers

NOW Workshop WG Chair

Georgia Institute of Technology

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.

Steering Committee Member</br> Southwest Research Center

Sierra Ferguson

NOW Workshop WG Chair

Social & Conference Chair

Southwest Research Institute

Dr. Sierra Ferguson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at SwRI Boulder. Currently, she studies impact cratering processes on the icy and ocean worlds of the outer solar system. She is interested in combining the surface record with theoretical models about how the satellites formed and were modified to constrain the evolution pathways for ocean worlds. Sierra is also interested in the development of planetary spacecraft missions. Sierra was a member of the 2019 JPL Planetary Science Summer Seminar team, she was the Deputy Project Manager and Ground Systems chair for the Bridge mission concept to rendezvous with an interstellar object.

Kevin Trinh

Social & Conference Chair

Arizona State University

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.

Team

Andrew M. Annex

Johns Hopkins University Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences

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.

Southwest Research Institute

Bruce Wyatt Boles

Montana State University

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.

Benner - BAYLEIGH BENNER

Bayleigh Benner

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Dr. Bayleigh Benner is an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the lab of Dr. Julie Huber. Bayleigh is a molecular virologist and microbiologist interested in uncovering the virome of environments on Earth that serve as analog sites to Ocean Worlds. Her research utilizes genomics-based approaches to identify viral populations and virus-host interactions within deep-sea ecosystems. She aims to characterize the roles viruses play in biogeochemical cycling, microbial adaptation, modulation of host metabolism, and the evolution of life. Bayleigh received her B.S. in Marine Science-Biology (University of Tampa, 2014) and Ph.D. in Microbiology (University of Wisconsin, 2020).

Chase Chivers

Georgia Institute of Technology

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

LilyCBranstetterBioPhoto-min - lily clough

Lily Clough Branstetter

The University of Tulsa

I am currently pursuing my Masters at the University of Tulsa in Geosciences with a focus on Computer Science. I recently completed an internship with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, with my research focusing on machine learning for ocean world laboratory analog seawater volatiles. We hope to predict subsurface or oceanic conditions given plume or exosphere mass spectrometry data. I am also researching the phylogenetics of astrobiologically significant extremophiles and their biogeochemistry. By studying this, I hope to make inferences about the possible nature and environments of early life on Earth and that of postulated astrobiological life.

Charlie Detelich

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Charlie Detelich is a first-year Ph.D. student at Cornell University, where she studies surface processes on Europa and Titan via mapping, modeling, and physical analog experiments. She is interested in understanding the ice shells of outer solar system satellites and what they can tell us about potential habitability. Charlie is also a graduate student affiliate with the Europa Imaging System (EIS) team onboard Europa Clipper. Previously, she worked at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and earned her M.S. and B.S. in Geology from University of Alaska Anchorage and NC State University, respectively.

IMG_3336 - Sabrina Elkassas

Sabrina Elkassas

Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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.

00100lPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20190722160754159_COVER - Patrick Gray

Patrick C Gray

Duke University Marine Lab

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.

_DSC0646 - Rachel Harris

Rachel Harris

Harvard University

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

Earth-Life Science Institute; Tokyo Institute of Technology

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_reduce - Sarah Lamm

Sarah Lamm

University of Kansas

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.

jlawrence_excessively_dramatic_antarctic_pic - Justin Lawrence

Justin Lawrence

Georgia Institute of Technology

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).

marusiak_headshot2 - Angela Marusiak

Angela Marusiak

Caltech, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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.

SaraMiller_Headshot_2020 - Sara Miller

Sara Miller

Cornell University

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.

Sara Pierson

Georgia Institute of Technology

Sara Pierson is a Ph.D. student in the Ocean Science and Engineering program at the Georgia Institute of Technology researching wireless communications and remote sensing/monitoring (focus on acoustics) for future ocean-worlds missions. When she is not modelling or testing transducers in the office, you can find her riding her bike around Atlanta!

IMG_20210809_175553923_PORTRAIT_smaller file size - kirt robinson

Kirtland J Robinson

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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.

ProfilePic - Melissa Sedler

Melissa Sedler

Arizona State University

Melissa's research interests lie in geochemical analogs for planetary environments and the astrobiological implications of these conditions

image001 - Jessica Weber

Jessica Weber

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Dr. Jessica Weber is a postdoc at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab working with Dr. Laurie Barge. Jessica is an astrobiologist and chemist on mineral-organic interactions and reactivity related to prebiotic chemistry on ocean and terrestrial worlds. Jessica received her PhD in Chemistry from MIT in 2019 and her BS in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2014. Jessica has also been involved in organizing the 2019 Caltech-JPL Venus Seminar series and the 2020 Planetary Science Summer School.

Natalie Wolfenbarger

Stanford University

Natalie Wolfenbarger received her PhD in geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. Her research has evolved from characterizing spacecraft performance as an Aerospace Engineer to examining how data acquired by spacecraft can be used to better understand Earth and other ocean worlds—particularly Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa. Natalie is currently an affiliate member of the Europa Clipper science team supporting verification and validation of the REASON instrument, an ice-penetrating radar designed to peer through Europa’s enigmatic ice shell. Her research aims to understand how we can use radar studies of Earth ice to help interpret future data collected by REASON to investigate Europa’s habitability. Her studies of analog environments for Europa has led her to both the Arctic and Antarctica, where she worked with a team of researchers to conduct aerogeophysical surveys of sites including Devon Ice Cap and Thwaites Glacier.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is dedicated to advancing knowledge of the ocean and its connection with the Earth system through a sustained commitment to excellence in science, engineering, and education, and to the application of this knowledge to problems facing society. Learn more »

WHOI Research

Areas of Research
Departments & Centers
Ships & Technology
Scientific Services

WHOI Academics

Graduate
Postdoctorate
Undergraduate
Accreditation

© 2023 Network for Ocean Worlds. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Login
General Information: information@whoi.edu or (508) 548-1400 | Website inquiries: webdev@whoi.edu | Media inquiries: media@whoi.edu