Education and Outreach

NASA Astrobiology Program Selection of NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellows

By Keith Cowing
March 23, 2011

The NASA Astrobiology Program is pleased to announce the selection of four new NASA Postdoctoral Fellows:

Aaron Engelhart (Georgia Tech)
Advisor: Jack Szostak (Exobiology: Prebiotic Evolution, Mass General/ Harvard)
Topic: “Experimental Models of a Key Step in Prebiotic Compartmentalization: Coupling Vesicle Growth and Nucleic Acid Synthesis”

Svetlana Berdyugina (ETH Zurich)
Advisor: Karen Meech (NAI University of Hawaii Team)
Topic: “Hot Water in Exoplanets and Protoplanetary Disks”

Aaron Goldman (University of Washington)
Advisor: Laura Landweber at Princeton University (NAI, Georgia Tech Team)
Topic: “ORGOS: A Database and Unified Organizational Framework to Aggregate, Evaluate, and Advance Origin of Life Research”

Jordan Okie (Univ. of New Mexico)
Advisors: Everett Shock (Exobiology: Early Evolution of Life and the Biosphere, Arizona State University) and Tori Hoehler (NAI, NASA Ames Team)
Topic: “Thermodynamic and Kinetic Constraints on Metabolic Diversity: Quantifying the Biogeochemical Niche Space of Life”

More information about the NPP can be found at http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/funding/nai-postdoctoral-fellowship-program/

Source: NAI Newsletter

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