People: Astrobiology Graduate Students

Rika Anderson
Oceanography

I first developed an interest in astrobiology in high school, when the fledgling field was still recruiting new members to its ranks. The aims of astrobiology, at first glance, seem a bit ambitious--to deduce the origins of life, to determine life's farthest limits, to search for life elsewhere in our universe. But this integrative and open-minded thinking astrobiology is exactly what attracted me then and still fascinates me today.

To pursue my interest in astrobiology, I went to Bremen, Germany to study lipid biomarkers deep beneath ocean sediments, I studied life's earliest evolution in Stockholm, Sweden, and I joined a cruise in the South Pacific to hunt down organisms that may be deriving their energy from the radiolysis of water deep below the ocean mud.

Now I'm part of the Astrobiology program at the University of Washington, where I hope to continue my interest in astrobiology, I'll be working with either John Baross or Jody Deming, and hopefully will be studying the evolution of bacteria and archaea in extreme environments, such as at hydrothermal vents or in the sea ice, which can inform us as to how life persists in such extreme conditions, and perhaps even give us clues about how life originated on this planet.