Welcome to Astrobiology at the University of Washington
UWAB Headlines
06/25/2018
Will We Know Life When We See It?
UW researchers in the Virtual Planetary Laboratory led and were co-authors on a series of papers published in the journal Astrobiology outlining the history — and suggesting the future — of the search for life on exoplanets. In this set of papers, researchers investigated the most promising signs of life (biosignatures), and considered how to interpret these signs if we were to detect them on an exoplanet. “For life to be detectable on a distant world it needs to strongly modify its planet in a way that we can detect,” said UW astronomy professor Victoria Meadows. The NASA press release can be found here. MORE>06/18/2018
Astrobiology Top 10: How Phosphorus helped oxygenate Earth's Atmosphere
A paper by Astrobiology student Mike Kipp (ESS) and AB Alumna Eva Stueeken (2014), now at University of St Andrews in Scotland, has been recognized as one of the Top 10 astrobiology discoveries of the year by Astrobiology magazine! The paper can be found here MORE>05/21/2018
Marshall Styczinski awarded NASA Earth & Space Science Fellowship
Astrobiology Graduate Certificate and Physics Ph.D student Marshall Styczinski, was just awarded a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF)! Marshall's project is focused on applying multifluid plasma models to Europa. The end goal is a better understanding of how Europa's oceans are distributed, by comparing simulated spacecraft data to measurements by the Galileo mission. MORE>05/15/2018
Josh Krissansen-Totton receives Graduate Dean's Medalist Award
Astrobiology/ESS student Josh Krissansen-Totton was awarded the annual UW College of the Environment “Graduate Dean’s Medalist Award” for outstanding academic achievement as a graduate student! Josh has published eight papers as a graduate student, and on six of those he was the first author. Congratulations Josh! MORE>05/04/2018