Space Observatories: Learning Lessons from Yesterday to Build the Systems of Tomorrow

Dr. Jonathan W. Arenberg Northrop Grumman Space Astronomy is a science driven by observation. Since 1609, those observations have required...

UWAB Members Featured in College of Environment’s FieldSound Podcast

This week UWAB faculty member, Jodi Young, and postdoctoral researcher, Fabian Klenner, joined the UW College of Environment’s Extreme Environments...

Sediment cycles record past lunar distance and length of day

Alberto MalinvernoLamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University Astronomical cycles have been widely recognized to drive climatic changes that are recorded by cyclic sediment...

Paleoenvironmental context in searching for past life on Mars

Professor Kathy Campbell Abstract:  The search for life beyond Earth occupies exploration efforts of space agencies and researchers, and captures...

Applications Open for the Heising-Simons 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellowship at The University of Washington

The UW community supports research efforts in exoplanet and planetary science and astrobiology, primarily within the Astronomy and Earth and...


Over the past 20 years our program has trained the next generation of astrobiologists and made significant advances in understanding how to search for life beyond the Earth. Our program offers a rigorous, interdisciplinary dual-title PhD in a home department and Astrobiology, as well as a graduate certificate in Astrobiology. Our alumni have gone on to exciting careers at universities, government labs and elsewhere. Below we showcase the achievements of students, faculty and alumni, and on other pages you can learn about how to apply to our graduate program, learn more about our research and outreach activities, and find out the latest on our colloquium series and public events.


From Our Most Recent Newsletter

Research Highlight

Our UW Astrobiology Program members have made exciting scientific discoveries and published many research updates over the past year. Prof Brook Nunn (Genome Sciences) and her colleagues recently published their work detailing how polar microbes can shed light on ways to detect potential life in icy bodies in our solar system!

Alumni Updates

The UW Astrobiology Program has graduated over 60 alumni, who have exciting careers as faculty members, scientists, university researchers, industry specialists and, entrepreneurs. They’ve all been hard at work this past year and have shared some of their achievements, awards, and scientific publications with us here.


Recent Updates