NfoLD Organizational Structure

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NfoLD is overseen by a representative from NASA headquarters, three co-leads, and a steering committee comprised of the PIs of NASA ROSES R&A awards.  In the future, ROSES proposers will be able to volunteer to join NfoLD Steering Committee by responding to a query during the proposal submission process. NfoLD also offers affiliate membership to persons, groups, or organizations whose research interests, goals, and vision are aligned with those of NfoLD and would like to actively participate in NfoLD-organized activities.

THE TEAM

LINDSAY HAYS

NASA HQ | HQ Liason

SARAH JOHNSON

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY | Co-Lead

Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures

TEAM MEMBERS: Heather Graham, Eric V Anslyn, Pan Conrad, Lee Cronin, Andrew Ellington, Jamie Elsila Cook, Pete Girguis, Chris House, Chris Kempes, Eric Libby, Paul Mahaffy, Jay Nadeau, Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Andrew Steele, Anais Roussel, Andrew Hyde, Tyler Garvin, Geoff Cooper, Lingyu Zeng, Arda Gulay, Béatrice Leydier, Xiang Li, Andrej Grubisic, Jeffrey Marlow, William B Brinckerhoff, Matthew Fricke, Melanie Moses

BRITNEY SCHMIDT

GEORGIA TECH | Co-Lead

Oceans Across Time and Space (OAST)

TEAM MEMBERS: Jeff Bowman, Doug Bartlett, Cristopher Carr, Anne Dekas, Peter Doran, Jennifer Glass. Ellery Ingall, Alison Olcott Marshall, Alexandra Pontefract, Christopher Reinhard, Krista Soderlund, Sanjoy Som, Frank Stewart, Amanda Stockton, James Wray, Joseph Levy, Greg Rouse, Craig MarshallChris Bennett, John Moores, Ray Jayawardhana, Tim Lyons, Natalie Robinson, Craig Stevens, Mike Williams, Inga Smith, Justin Lawrence, Jacob Buffo

TORI HOEHLER

NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER | Co-Lead

Center for Life Detection Science (CLDS)

TEAM MEMBERS: Lee Bebout, Will Brinckerhoff, Chris Dateo, Alfonso Davila, David Des Marais, Jen Eigenbrode, Craig Everroad, Stephanie Getty, Danny Glavin, Linda Jahnke, Barbara Lafuente Valverde, Owen Lehmer,Paul Mahaffy, Niki Parenteau, Andrew Porhille, Richard Quinn, Andro Rios, Sanjoy Som, Mary Beth Wilhelm

BETH ORCUTT

BIGELOW LABORATORY FOR OCEAN SCIENCE

Steering Committee

Sorting out active vs. inactive microbes in subsurface oceanic crust Icy World analogs

TEAM MEMBERS: Dr. Jackie Goordial, Dr. Anne Booker, Mr. Tim D’Angelo, Dr. Melody Lindsay

ROGER SUMMONS

MIT

Steering Committee

Biosignatures of the 'Dirty Ice' of the McMurdo Ice Shelf: Analogues for biological oases during the Cryogenian and on other icy world

WILLIAM HUG

PHOTON SYSTEMS, INC.

Steering Committee

Advancing the TRL of a Compact, High Dynamic Range Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer

WESLEY SWINGLEY

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

Chlorophyll d as a model for biosignature evolution

TEAM MEMBERS: Nancy Kiang, Niki Parenteau, Min Chen, Robert Blankenship

ALEXANDER PAVLOV

NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Steering Committee

Exploring destruction of biomolecules in Martian rocks and regolith by Cosmic Rays

FRANK CORSETTI

USC

Steering Committee

Investigating a novel role for iron redox cycling in the lithification of microbial mats and the rise and fall of stromatolites in Earth history

SHANSHAN YU

NASA JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

Steering Committee

Millimeter-wave spectrometer for chirality and relative abundance determination of amino acid biomarkers

TEAM MEMBERS: Robert Hodyss, Michael Malask, Ken Cooper, Deacon Nemchick, Pr Brooks Pate, Martin Holdren

TIM SHORT

SRI INTERNATIONAL

Steering Committee

Membrane Extraction for Space Applications

TEAM MEMBERS: Strawn Toler, Jennifer Stern, Charles Malespin

DAVID BLAKE

NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER

Steering Committee

Mapping X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (MapX)

TEAM MEMBERS: Thomas Bristow, Robert Downs, Marc Gailhanou, Franck Marchis, Douglas Ming, Richard Morris, Philippe Sarrazin, Vincent Armando Solé, Kathleen Thompson, Philippe Walter, Michael Wilson, Albert Yen, Samuel Webb, Richard Walroth

GORDON LOVE

UC RIVERSIDE

Steering Committee

Exceptional preservation of Ediacaran organic biosignatures yields novel insights into the marine environments and ecology that hosted early multicellular organisms

TEAM MEMBERS: Andrey Bekker, Carina Lee, Kelden Pehr, Adam Hoffmann, Nathan Marshall, Adriana Rizzo

DAVID STILLMAN

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Steering Committee

Toward Geophysical Detection of the Biological Modification of Ice

TEAM MEMBERS: Katie Primm

CHRISTINE FOREMAN

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

SLICE Spectral Signs of Life in Ice

TEAM MEMBERS: Marco Tedesco and Shujie Wang, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University , Christine Foreman, Markus Dieser, Heidi Smith and Mitch Messmer, Montana State University

ALEXANDRA PONTEFRACT

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

Biosignature Preservation in Sulfate-Dominated Hypersaline Environments

TEAM MEMBERS: Magdalena Osburn, Christopher Carr, Jack Szostak, Shuhei Ono, Virgnia Walker

KRISTIN BERGMANN

MIT

Steering Committee

The Thermal Maturity of Neoproterozoic Strata: Carbonate Clumped Isotope Thermometry and Biomarker Analyses

TEAM MEMBERS: Tyler Mackey, Julia Wilcots, Marjorie Cantine, Noah Anderson

PABLO SOBRON

SETI INSTITUTE

Steering Committee

In-situ Vent Analysis Div

ebot for Exobiology Research (InVADER)

TEAM MEMBERS: Tayro Acosta-Maeda, Jan Amend, Laurie Barge, Justin Burnett, Renaud Detry, Ivria Doloboff, Ninos Hermis, Deborah Kelley, Dana Manalang, Aaron Margburg, Anupam Misra, Anuscheh Nawaz, Roy Price, Fredrik Rehnmark, Marianne Smith, Pablo Sobron, Blair Thornton, David Yu, Kris Zacny

FABIEN KENIG

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO

Steering Committee

fs-LDPI MS mapping of organic compounds in deep time Earth sediments: A tool for determination of the spatial distribution of lipid biosignatures at the micron scale

TEAM MEMBERS: Luke Hanley, Joey Pasterski, Raveendra C. Wickramasinghe

RICARDO AREVALO

UMD

Steering Committee

Miniaturized Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS) for Trace Element Analysis

TEAM MEMBERS: Ben Farcy, William McDonough, Mazdak Taghioskoui, Mehdi Benna, William Brinckerhoff ,Grace Ni

GORDON CHIN

NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Steering Committee

SELFI (Submillimeter Enceladus Life Fundamentals Instrument)

TEAM MEMBERS: Carie Anderson, Damon Bradley, Terry Hurford, Tilak Hewagama, Tim Livengood, Paul Racette, ,Karen Junge

RICHARD MATHIES

BERKELEY

Steering Committee

The Enceladus Organic Analyzer (EOA)

TEAM MEMBERS: Anna Butterwirth, Amanda Stockton, Jungkyu Kim, James New, Matin Golozar

ROLAND HATZENPICHLER

MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

Probing in situ microbial activity and function using stable isotopes and substrate analogs

TEAM MEMBERS: Anthony Kohtz, Mackenzie Lynes, George Schaible

KATHLEEN BENISON

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

Preservation and detection of extremophiles in Mars-analog halite and gypsum

TEAM MEMBERS: Anna Sofia Andeskie

DANIEL JONES

NEW MEXICO TECH

Steering Committee

Gypsum-hosted biosignatures in subterranean chemosynthetic ecosystems

TEAM MEMBERS: Heather Graham, Jennifer Stern, Scott Wankel

BROOK NUNN

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE

Steering Committee

Using Proteome Dynamics of Psychrophilic Bacteria to Decipher Metabolic Strategies and Protein Signatures Indicative of Sustained Life in Ice

TEAM MEMBERS: Karen Junge, Bonnie Light, Brook Nunn, Marcella Ewart Sarmiento, Jonathon Toner

DINA M. BOWER

UMD/NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Steering Committee

Ultra-Violet Detector Innovation for Raman Exploration and CharacTerization (UV-DIRECT) of Ocean Worlds

TEAM MEMBERS: Shahid Aslam, Tilak Hewagama, Nicolas Gorius, Anand Sampath, Jonathan Schuster

WILLIAM SPARKS

SETI Institute

Steering Committee

Detecting the fundamental chiral building blocks of life

EDWARD YOUNG

UCLA

Steering Committee

Developing Methane Isotopologues as Interplanetary Biosignatures

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ELIZABETH TREMBATH-REICHERT

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Steering Committee

Cold and dry limit to life: Understanding microbial activity in dry permafrost samples from the newly discovered Elephants Head, Antarctica​

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KOSTAS KONSTANTINIDIS 

GEORGIA TECH

Steering Committee

How Microbes Adapt to Living in the Upper Atmosphere: Implications for Cloud Formation, and Life During Early Earth and Elsewhere in the Universe

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ALEXIS TEMPLETON

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

Steering Committee

Targeted Life Detection in Subsurface Serpentinites

TEAM MEMBERS: Eric Boyd, Srishti Kashyap, Tristan Caro, Mason Munro-Ehrlich, Dan Colman, Rachel Spietz, Alexis England

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SHANNON MACKENZIE

JHU APPLIED PHYSICS LAB

Steering Committee

The Interior Life of Dunes

TEAM MEMBERS: Michael France, Jani Radebaugh, Ralph Lorenz, Jacques Ravel

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WILLIAM B. BRINCKERHOFF

NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Steering Committee

Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI)

TEAM MEMBERS: Peter Willis, Tony Ricco, Andrej Grubisic, Jennifer Stern, Fernanda Mora, Jessica Creamer, Richard Quinn, Ryan Danell, Kris Zacny, Cyril Szopa

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LAURIE BARGE

NASA JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

Steering Committee

In-Situ Vent Analysis Divebot for Exobiology Research / Phosphorous Redox Chemistry on Rocky and Icy Planets

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FIELD SITE MAP