8 Projects Win Funding in 1st Year of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe
Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Heising-Simons Foundation, NASA, and The Kavli Foundation are announcing awards totaling $1,100,000 to eight multidisciplinary teams of researchers in the inaugural year of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe. Each of the 20 individual awards is for $55,000.
The initiative brought together 54 Scialog Fellows, early-career scientists from a variety of disciplines and institutions across the U.S. and Canada, including NASA. Fellows formed teams to propose cutting-edge research with the potential to transform our understanding of the habitability of planets, of how the occurrence of life alters planets and leaves signatures, and of how to detect such signatures beyond Earth, both within our solar system and on exoplanets.
“As a nation, we are investing considerable resources in the search for life beyond Earth, so it makes sense to identify exciting new research directions in this field by bringing together experts from a range of disciplines,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer. “These multi-disciplinary discussions, in this case among astronomers, biologists, chemists, geologists, and physicists to talk about planets within and beyond our solar system and the origins of life on Earth, is just what Scialog is about.”
Scialog is short for “science + dialog.” Created in 2010 by RCSA, the Scialog format brings together communities of early-career scientists to advance basic science in areas of global importance and to write proposals for high-risk, high-reward collaborative research projects based on the ideas that emerge at the conference.
The inaugural meeting of Signatures of Life in the Universe was held virtually June 10-11, 2021. Guided by senior facilitators, who are leading researchers, participants from fields including earth and planetary science, chemistry and physics, astronomy and astrobiology, microbiology and biochemistry, and data science brainstormed about transformative research projects that could bring us closer to answering basic questions about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
“As we discover an abundance of other planets, it is entirely possible that some of them host life,” said Cyndi Atherton, Science Program Director at the Heising-Simons Foundation. “Given the advances in this area of astronomy, this Scialog is perfectly timed to maximize possible projects, collaborations, and further discoveries, perhaps the kind that we only dreamed of in past generations.”
“In 20 years we may look back on transformational discoveries about life in our universe and trace them to the grants arising out of the 2021 Scialog,” she said.
The following teams have received 2021 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Awards:
Greg Fournier, Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *
Stilianos Louca, Biology, University of Oregon †
Can the Search for Oxygenated Atmosphere Biosignatures Lead to False Negatives?
Jen Glass, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology †
Edwin Kite, Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago §
Smadar Naoz, Physics and Astronomy, UCLA †
Methane from Nontraditional Abiotic Sources and Potential for False Biosignature Positives
Marc Neveu, Dept. of Astronomy / Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / University of Maryland ‡
Ziming Yang, Chemistry, Oakland University †
How may Biosignatures in Icy Ocean Worlds be Affected by Plume Ejection?
Laurie Barge, Planetary Sciences, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ‡
Jeffrey Marlow, Biology, Boston University †
Synthetic Mineral Geo-Electrodes for Detecting Life on Ocean Worlds
Rika Anderson, Biology, Carleton College †
Noah Planavsky, Geology and Geophysics, Yale †
Long Term Controls on the Scope of Earth’s Biosphere
Bradford Foley, Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University *
Kimberly Lau, Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University *
Stephanie Olson, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, Purdue University *
Water, Water Everywhere … Drops to Drink but Nothing to Eat? A Model for the Evolution of Ocean Chemistry on Waterworlds
Aaron Engelhart, Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota *
Meredith MacGregor, Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder *
Laura Schaefer, Geological Sciences, Stanford University *
Could Nucleic Acid-Based Life Survive on Oxygen-Rich M Dwarf Planets?
Edwin Kite, Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago *
Stilianos Louca, Biology, University of Oregon *
Chris Reinhard, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology *
Stochastic Simulation of Evolving Planetary Biospheres
* Funded by Heising-Simons
† Funded by RCSA
‡ Funded by NASA
§ Funded by RCSA with Kavli Foundation support
