Hi, I’m Jennifer. From a young age I thought our universe was far too big for life to only be found on Earth. I often spent time wondering what other worlds and the “aliens” that inhabit them would look like. It was that curiosity that brought me to my current path in life. After getting a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, I wanted to apply that knowledge to discovering the possibility of life off Earth. Now, as a PhD student, I’m studying astrobiology and geobiology in the EDGE lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Currently, my research focus is finding life (if it is there) on the icy moons in our own solar system such as Enceladus, Titan, and Europa. I work with high pressure microbiology, studying how life as we know it copes with pressures that would be found in the subsurface oceans of those moons. I also study life found at the Yellowstone National Park geothermal features as an analog to early Earth and possible environments on extraterrestrial worlds.

I am also interested in planetary protection and understanding how life that we may accidentally bring on space missions could adapt to extreme conditions. For example, if we accidentally brought microbial life to Mars on one of the rovers, would it be able to adapt and survive through the space flight and on the planet.