Astrobiology
Astrobiology Faculty
Daniel Apai
Associate Professor
Victor Baker
Regents' Professor
Gilda Ballester
Senior Research Scientist
Dante Lauretta
Professor, Principal Investigator, OSIRIS-REx
Renu Malhotra
Regents' Professor, Louise Foucar Marshall Science Research Professor
Isamu Matsuyama
Associate Professor
Roger Yelle
Professor
Tom Zega
Associate Professor
Other Researchers Working in Astrobiology
Zachary Adam
Associate Staff Scientist
Saverio Cambioni
PTYS Graduate Student
Rachel Fernandes
PTYS Graduate Student
Ben Lew
PTYS Graduate Student
Maureen Palmer
PTYS Graduate Student
Joana Voigt
PTYS Graduate Student
Astrobiology is a vibrant field that focuses on the study of the origins, distribution and evolution of life in the universe. Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary field that combines astronomy, geology, biology and chemistry. At the University of Arizona, there are six academic departments that participate in the astrobiology program.
The University of Arizona offers one of the few astrobiology minor programs in the United States. Some of the questions we seek to answer include:
- How did life emerge?
- How did the first metabolic networks and organisms evolve?
- How did the translation machinery emerge and evolve?
- Can we provide insights into RNA world?
- Is life deterministic or repeatable?
- What is the likelihood that life comparable to our own has arisen elsewhere in the universe?
Center for Astrobiology
The Department of Planetary Sciences is one of the departments participating in the College of Science Center for Astrobiology. The center fosters interdisciplinary research and education in astrobiology by providing an organizational framework for the astrobiology community.
The Center builds on the heritage of the Life and Planets Astrobiology Center, an earlier NASA Astrobiology Institute node, and combines cutting-edge research from astronomy, planetary sciences, chemistry, geo- and biological sciences.