Astrobiology program gets major boost from UIF grant

The University of Washington’s unique program to train researchers how to hunt for life away from Earth got a major boost recently when the College of Arts and Sciences pledged a permanent $151,000 annual University Initiative Fund grant.

The grant to the astrobiology program will allow establishment of the Center for Astrobiology and Early Evolution and the hiring of two faculty members and two postdoctoral researchers in any Arts and Sciences program that is part of astrobiology. UIF money is raised by levying an annual 1 percent tax on each department budget, with the money then awarded to programs on a competitive basis.

Woodruff Sullivan, a UW astronomy professor and head of the new center’s steering group, also expects to begin an annual UW Astrobiology Institute in the summer of 2001.

The astrobiology field has drawn increasing interest in the last two years, highlighted by NASA’s establishment of the Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center near San Francisco. A conference there earlier this month drew more than 300 participants, including three major speakers and several poster presentations from the UW.

The UW’s doctoral astrobiology program, whose first students began last fall, was established in 1998 with a
$2 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation. It involves 11 departments and 14 faculty in four colleges. In the program, students study life forms that exist and thrive in extreme Earth environments, such as polar ice and deep-sea hydrothermal vents, to better understand conditions in which life might be found away from Earth.

“We’ve been very pleased with the students we’re attracting,” Sullivan said. “One thing that’s happening is that the departments are recognizing that the astrobiology program is attracting a high quality of applicant.”

In the program, graduate students choose one of the 11 programs in which to focus their study, but also complete a specially tailored program that contains elements of several other scientific disciplines. Degrees are granted in the main focus areas, but with an endorsement for astrobiology.

“I don’t know of any other organized graduate program in astrobiology,” Sullivan said. “There are other universities where you can get an excellent education in astrobiology topics, but you have to make it for yourself.”

In addition to the new center and faculty positions, the UIF grant also will allow development and support of two new undergraduate courses for non-science majors, Sullivan said. One will examine how Earth got to the physical and biological conditions it has today. The other focuses on how life might adapt in hostile environments on other planets, in part by looking at how life adapts to forbidding environments on Earth. Doctoral students in astrobiology will be teaching assistants for the undergraduate courses.

“One important goal of the courses is to use exciting subjects to get students interested in science and understanding it as a process,” Sullivan said. ¶

Vince Stricherz, News & Information