8 Teams Win Awards in 2nd Year of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe
Top row: Katherine de Kleer, Sarah Hörst, Sarah Maurer, Aaron Engelhart, Fang Liu, Kate Follette. 2nd row: Jeffrey Marlow, Paul Bracher, Ilse Cleeves, Eddie Schwieterman, Ziming Yang, Nick Cowan. 3rd row: Joseph O'Rourke, Leslie Rogers, Chenguang Sun, Zachary Adam, Fang Liu, Laurie Barge, Frances Rivera-Hernández.
Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Heising-Simons Foundation, The Kavli Foundation and NASA are announcing awards totaling $1,045,000 to eight multidisciplinary teams of researchers from institutions across the United States and Canada in the second year of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe. Each of the 19 individual awards is $55,000.
“Fellows of this initiative have a great responsibility,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer. “This research will help inform priorities and design the science for multibillion-dollar public investments in space missions in the years to come.”
Scialog is short for “science + dialog.” Created in 2010 by RCSA, the Scialog format supports research by stimulating intensive interdisciplinary conversation and community building around an important scientific theme. Teams of two to four Fellows who have not previously collaborated compete for seed funding for high-risk, high-reward projects based on the innovative ideas that emerge at the conference.
The following Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe teams will receive 2022 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Awards:
Katherine de Kleer, Geological and Planetary Sciences, Caltech *
Sarah Hörst, Earth and Planetary Science, Johns Hopkins University *
Sarah Maurer, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Central Connecticut State University *
Enceladus Plume Chemistry: From Lab to Telescope
Aaron Engelhart, Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota ^
Fang Liu, Chemistry, Emory University ^
Computational and Experimental Investigations of Martian Brines as Prebiotic Environments
Kate Follette, Physics and Astronomy, Amherst College *
Jeffrey Marlow, Biology, Boston University *
From Exoplanets to Microbes: Using Astronomical Image Processing Techniques to Detect Microbes in Astrobiological Contexts
Paul Bracher, Chemistry, Saint Louis University ^
Ilse Cleeves, Astronomy, University of Virginia *
Brimstone Life: Hypothetical Sulfur Worlds and Their Possible Biosignatures
Eddie Schwieterman, Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Riverside †
Ziming Yang, Chemistry, Oakland University †
Methylated Organometallic Gases as Potential Biosignatures
Nick Cowan, Earth & Planetary Sciences and Physics, McGill University *
Joseph O'Rourke, Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University *
Leslie Rogers, Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago *
Chenguang Sun, Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin *
Volatile Reservoirs and the Habitability of M-Earths
Zachary Adam, Geoscience, University of Wisconsin – Madison ^
Fang Liu, Chemistry, Emory University ^
Assessing False Positive Biosignatures and Prebiotic Synthesis Generated by Two Candidate Autocatalytic Reaction Sets of Aqueous Sulfur
Laurie Barge, Planetary Sciences, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ‡
Frances Rivera-Hernández, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology *
Mars Sample Return: Connecting Martian Environmental Geochemistry to Returned Samples
* Funded by Heising-Simons Foundation
^ Funded by RCSA
† Funded by Kavli Foundation
‡ Funded by NASA
The 2022 meeting of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe, held June 9-12 in Tucson, Arizona, brought together 40 early career researchers in earth and planetary science, chemistry and physics, astronomy and astrobiology, microbiology and biochemistry, and computer and data science. As new telescopes generate unprecedented amounts of data, and following the recent release of two National Academies decadal surveys identifying key scientific challenges for astronomy and astrophysics in the next decade -- and prioritizing the search for life beyond Earth -- the meeting underscored the need to fill critical science gaps through collaborative research.
In his keynote talk, “Groundwork for Life Detection: New Challenges and New Opportunities,” speaker Tori Hoehler, NASA Ames, said the search for evidence of life on Mars and ocean worlds beyond Earth will be front and center in the next decade and beyond. This will require scientifically rigorous, concrete and target-specific approaches to life detection. To spur discussions at the meeting, he suggested key areas for collaborative groundwork to “set the table for what comes next.”
Niki Parenteau, NASA Ames, and Victoria Meadows, University of Washington, continued with their talk, “Leveraging Research and Analysis to Maximize the Scientific Return of Exoplanet Missions.” For the first time, they said, astrobiology goals have driven the design of the astrophysics mission. As vast numbers of exoplanets are being discovered, they said, a uniform framework of biosignature standards of evidence is needed to vet claims of life detection, as such signs will be “neither instantaneous nor unambiguous.” Parenteau stressed that the seed projects funded as part of this initiative are needed now to feed the larger precursor science critical to NASA mission design.
Facilitated breakout sessions followed up on the keynote talks, sparking ideas for new research. In addition to Hoehler, Parenteau and Meadows, breakouts were facilitated by: Rebecca Bernstein, Carnegie Institution; Jonathan Fortney, University of California, Santa Cruz; and Tim Lyons, University of California, Riverside.
As ideas for collaborative new research emerged, participants coalesced into teams to develop proposals that they presented the last morning of the conference. A committee of Facilitators reviewed the proposals and made funding recommendations following the conference.
Participants are encouraged to develop unorthodox ideas and write proposals that depart from their current work, collaborating with new colleagues whose approaches and methods are different.
The final meeting of Scialog: Signatures of Life in the Universe is scheduled for March 16-19, 2023, in Tucson, Arizona.
