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NAI Seminar Series
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The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) hosts a series of seminars that fall into 3 categories:


Director's Seminar Series
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
5/21/2012
Peter T. Doran
Human and Robotic Astrobiological Research in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
4/30/2012
Natalie Batalha
Kepler's Year-Three Transit Census
3/5/2012
Michael Hecht
Enabling Life with a Molecular Toolkit of Genes and Proteins Designed De Novo
1/30/2012
Paul Davies
Cancer as Metazoa 1.0
11/28/2011
John Peters
New Insights into the Transition of Iron-sulfur Compounds from Minerals to Enzymes
11/7/2011
Kurt Konhauser
Banded Iron Formation and Ancient Life
9/26/2011
David Deamer
Hydrothermal Conditions and the Origin of Cellular life
5/23/2011
Mark Allen
ESA/NASA ExoMars/Trace Gas Orbiter: A Search for Extant Habitability and Habitancy
4/25/2011
Jay Kaufman
Irreversible Oxidation of the Exosphere and Acceleration of the Biosphere Across the Archean-paleoproterozoic Transition
3/28/2011
George Cody
Establishing a Common Origin for Carbonaceous Solids in Comets, IDPs, and Primitive Chondrites
2/28/2011
Dawn Sumner
Linking Microbial Behaviors to Microbialite Morphology
2/7/2011
Burckhard Seelig
Potential Origin of Early Functional Proteins
12/6/2010
Elizaveta Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Anaerobic Thermophilic Lithoautotrophs: Life Without Light and Oxygen
12/1/2010
David Gilichinsky
Permafrost Astrobiology: Field Expedition to Terrestrial Analogues of Martian Habitats and Inhabitants
11/29/2010
Jenn Macalady
Pale Pink Dot Part II: Microbial Signatures of Ancient Oceans
10/25/2010
Ken Stedman
Quo vadis Astrovirology?
9/27/2010
John Valley
Clement Conditions in the "Hadean"
6/21/2010
Lee Kump
Evolution of the Oceans: Pale Pink Dot
6/7/2010
Katrina Edwards
Intraterrestrial Life on Earth
3/29/2010
Don Brownlee
Comets and the Early Solar System - Results from the Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission
3/1/2010
Tori Hoehler
Energy Flow and Life: A Thermodynamic-Kinetic View of Biology in its Relationship with the Environment
1/25/2010
William Borucki
Status of Kepler Mission and Early Discoveries
11/30/2009
Andrew Pohorille
Is Water Necessary for Life?
10/26/2009
Mark Young
A Changing View of Viruses in the Evolution and Ecology of Life
10/5/2009
Daniel Glavin
Southpaw Solar System: L-Amino Acid Excesses in Meteorites and the Implications for the Origin of Homochirality on Earth
6/29/2009
Chris Scholin
Application of the Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) in Deep-sea and Coastal Ocean Biomes
11/24/2008
Roger Summons
The Great Mass Extinction - a Sudden Event or a Slow Moving Train-Wreck?
11/3/2008
Jack Szostak
What can we Learn About the Origin of Life from Efforts to Design an Artificial Cell?
9/29/2008
Norm Sleep
Habitability of Super-Earths
6/30/2008
David Blake
The CheMin mineralogical instrument on the MSL mission and the field-portable TERRA version available for NAI field campaigns
6/2/2008
Giovanna Tinetti
Observing Extrasolar Worlds: From Gas Giant to Terrestrial Planets
4/28/2008
Steven Benner
Four Approaches to a General Theory of Life
3/31/2008
Jody Deming and James Staley
Earth's Low Temperature Life: An Analog for Mars and Europa?
2/25/2008
J. William Schopf
Can Rocks from Mars Yield Definitive Evidence of Past Life?
2/4/2008
David Hollenbach
The Effect of Protoplanetary Disk Dispersal on Planet Formation
12/3/2007
Geoff Marcy
Getting to the Core of Exoplanets: From Gas to Ice Giants
11/5/2007
Ariel Anbar
A Whiff of Oxygen before the Great Oxidation Event
9/24/2007
Norman Pace
Life in the Universe: The Expanding World of Microbial Diversity
4/30/2007
Steven D'Hondt
Microbial Activities in Deep Subseafloor Sediments
3/26/2007
Drake Deming
Infrared Spectra of Extrasolar Planets
2/26/2007
Tim Raub
New and Emerging Perspectives on Late Precambrian 'Snowball Earth' Glaciation
1/29/2007
Lisa Pratt and T.C. Onstott
Radiolysis of water as a source of bioavailable energy in the subsurface of Earth and Mars
11/27/2006
Sean Raymond and Avi Mandell
Formation of Habitable Planetary Systems: Are We Normal?
10/16/2006
Julie Huber
Microbial Diversity in the Deep Sea and the Underexplored Rare Biosphere
4/24/2006
Scott Sandford
The Stardust Discovery Mission - Returning Unique Samples of Early Solar System Organics
3/20/2006
Michael Manga
Water on Mars
2/27/2006
Tom McCollom
The Origin of Sulfate-rich Bedrock at Meridiani Planum on Mars: Sedimentary Evaporite, Impact, or Volcanic?
10/24/2005
Michael Jura
Using White Dwarfs to Study Extrasolar Asteroids and Planets
9/26/2005
Michael Meyer
Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Habitable Solar System in Context
7/25/2005
Ralph Lorenz
Lifting Titan's Veil
6/27/2005
Ben Zuckerman
High Resolution Imaging of Young Planets
4/25/2005
David Wolpert and William Macready
Self-dissimilarity: an empirical complexity signature
3/28/2005
Michael Mumma
Methane on Mars: Geochemistry or Biology?
3/28/2005
James Lyons
Methane on Mars: What does it mean?
2/28/2005
Olivier Rouxel
Iron Isotope Constraints on the Early Redox History of the Oceans
1/24/2005
Jonathan Lunine
Titan: A Personal View after Cassini's first six months in Saturn orbit
11/29/2004
Chris McKay
Drilling in Permafrost on Mars to Search for a Second Genesis of Life
10/25/2004
Christopher House
Anaerobic methanotrophs in the marine subsurface
9/27/2004
Peter Ward
A new mechanism of mass extinction - and 15 minutes about a new tree of life
4/26/2004
Victoria Meadows
Exploring the Living Cosmos: The Spitzer Space Telescope
3/22/2004
Roger Summons
Organic Biosignatures: Earthly biomarkers, analytical approaches, old rocks and meteorites
2/23/2004
David Des Marais
The Mars Exploration Rovers unveil new horizons for astrobiology
1/26/2004
Andrea Ghez
Unveiling a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy
11/24/2003
Jill Banfield
An Fe, S-sustained Subsurface Biosphere: Insights Through Linking Geochemistry and Genomics
10/27/2003
Kai-Uwe Hinrichs
Organic biosignatures for microbial processes in the terrestrial marine subsurface
8/25/2003
Linda Amaral Zettler
Eukaryotes at pH Extremes
7/28/2003
Jim Tiedje
Microbial and Genomic Insights Into Microbial Life in Permafrost
6/23/2003
Jose Maria Gomez, David Hochberg
Multicellular and Multicolonial Bacterial Patterns: Implications for Astrobiology
5/19/2003
John Bally
Star and Planet Formation
4/28/2003
Anurag Sharma
Experimental window into high pressure geobiology
3/24/2003
Tom Quinn
The Formation of Giant Planets
2/24/2003
David Smith
Probing the Limits of Earthıs Deep Biosphere
11/25/2002
Bruce Runnegar
Sulfur cycling on the early Earth
10/28/2002
Michael Storrie-Lombardo
Life Detection and Sensors: Bio-Info-Nano Science
5/20/2002
Ronald Greeley
Mars - The Astrobiology Connection
4/29/2002
George Cody
Mineral Catalysts and Pre-biotic Carbon Fixation
3/25/2002
Ariel Anbar
Novel Isotopic Biosignatures: Promise & Progress
2/25/2002
Norman Pace
Extreme Life and Biological Diversity in our Solar System
1/28/2002
Louis Allamandola
From Interstellar Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Ice to Astrobiology
table base


Forum for Astrobiology Research (FAR) Series
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
10/6/2008
William J. Brazelton and Catherine Neish
Prebiotic Chemistry
10/15/2007
Elise Furlan
First Steps of Planet Formation in Protoplanetary Disks
10/15/2007
Evgenya Shkolnik
The On/Off Nature of Star-Planet Interactions: A Probe of Magnetized Exoplanets
9/12/2005
Dustin Trail
A record of the earliest (4.5-3.8 Ga) surface conditions on Earth?
8/8/2005
Liliana Lefticariu
Simulating groundwater radiolysis with oxidation of pyrite by hydrogen peroxide solution
6/20/2005
Daniel Apai and Murray Silverstone
Exploring Planet-forming and Debris Disks
5/16/2005
Boncho P. Bonev
Quantifying Water Production in Comets - the "Meter Stick" for their Chemical Taxonomy
3/14/2005
Margaret Turnbull
Remote Sensing of Life and Habitable Worlds: Habstars, Earthshine, and the Challenge of TPF
2/14/2005
Monica Ponder
Life of a permafrost bacterium: Psychrobacter 273-4 reveals ways to adapt
9/13/2004
Dominic Papineau
Biogeochemical responses to the changing Paleoproterozoic atmosphere
8/9/2004
SUIA Students
Amanda Cook, Anita Ganesan, Nida Rauf and Marina Yoder
7/12/2004
Marc Fries
Establishing a Baseline for Antarctic Meteorite Research through the Antarctic Meteorite Contamination Study (AMCS)
7/12/2004
Nick Platts
A new model for the origin of proto-informational oligomeric material on the early Earth, and elsewhere
6/14/2004
Andrew Czaja
Illuminating The Black Box That Is Fossil Kerogen
6/14/2004
David Smith
Oxygen Triple Isotopes as a New Biogeochemical Tool
5/10/2004
Corey Cohn
Pyrite-generated radicals and the destruction of nucleic acids
5/10/2004
Dave Johnston
Isotopic fingerprints of sulfur metabolisms: using the minor isotopes to distinguish between process
4/12/2004
Mark Tyra
TERRESTRIAL ALTERATION OF CM CHONDRITIC CARBONATE
3/8/2004
Kevin Hand
The surface radiation chemistry of Europa and implications for a habitable ocean
2/9/2004
Brian Hynek
Martian Water on the Brain
11/10/2003
Julie Huber
Expanding the subseafloor biosphere to ridge flanks and beyond
10/20/2003
Jennifer Heldmann
An Investigation of Recent Water on Mars
9/8/2003
Sara Martinez
Looking for Hydrothermal Systems on Mars: An Integrated Study of Spectroscopic, Thermal, and Imaging Data
7/14/2003
Kevin Boyce
How to make a leaf? 400 million years of repeated answers to the same evolutionary question
6/9/2003
Ruth Ley
The Amazon Basin of the Mud World: Dizzying Microbial Diversity at Guerrero Negro's Salt Mats.
5/12/2003
Henry Scott
Chemical stratification and hydrocarbon stability in large icy satellites
4/14/2003
Michelle Minitti
Assessing the Effect of Impact Shock on Water in Amphibole: Implications for the Martian Meteorites
3/10/2003
Alex Pavlov
Atmospheric methane and oxygen in Archean and Proterozoic. Constraints from sulfur
2/7/2002
Stacy Varnes
Biological Potential of Martian Hydrothermal Systems
table base


University of Washington Astrobiology Seminar Series
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
5/8/2012
Bethany Ehlmann
The Earliest Aqueous, Habitable(?) Environments on Mars: A View from Orbit
5/1/2012
Everett Shock
Geochemistry Meets Biochemistry in Hydrothermal Ecosystems
4/24/2012
Antigona Segura
Tales of Habitability: The Curious Case of M Dwarf Planets
3/27/2012
Dirk Schulze-Makuch
The Future of Human Life: Mars, Exoplanets, and the 100-year Starship Project
11/15/2011
David Des Marais
Exploring Mars for Evidence of Habitable Environments and Life
11/1/2011
Kevin Walsh
How the Migration of Jupiter Shaped the Inner Solar System: "The Grand Tack"
10/18/2011
Robert Tyler
The Importance of Tidal Flow in Maintaining an Abundance of Liquid Oceans in the Universe
4/19/2011
Matthew T. Hurtgen
The Role of Sulfur in Regulating Earth Surface Oxygen Levels.
4/12/2011
Nicholas V. Hud
A Self-Assembly Approach to the Proto-RNA World
4/5/2011
Brent C. Christner
Subglacial Environments: The other deep biosphere.
3/29/2011
Jenn Macalady
A Rainbow of Ocean States
12/7/2010
Mark Skidmore
The (sub)glacial biosphere, microbial activity at zero degrees Celsius and below
11/16/2010
Christophe Sotin
The Habitability of Icy Moons
10/19/2010
Jim Kasting
Atmospheric Composition and Climate on the Early Earth
6/1/2010
Matt Pasek
High Energy Processing of Phosphorus on the Early Earth
5/25/2010
Dawn Sumner
Microbial Mat - Environment Interactions in Lake Joyce, Antarctica, and Implications for Archean Microbialites
5/11/2010
Antonio Lazcano
The 1953 Miller Experiment and the Origins of Life: The ghosts behind the molecules
4/20/2010
David Kring
Lunar Impact Cataclysm: Implications for astrobiological conditions throughout our solar system & in other planetary systems
4/6/2010
Webster Cash
Starshades and Direct Observation of Exoplanets
12/8/2009
Loren Williams
Where Did Protein Come From?
12/1/2009
Nancy Kiang
Efficiency of Photon Energy Use for Life Processes: Implications for spectral biosignatures
11/10/2009
Kevin Hand
Joule Heating of the South Polar Terrain on Enceladus
11/3/2009
Chris McKay
Results from the Mars Phoenix Mission for Mars Habitability and comparisons to Mars-like places on Earth
10/27/2009
Jade Bond
The Diversity of Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets
10/20/2009
Steven Benner
Understanding the Origin of Life
5/19/2009
Dirk Schulze-Makuch
Mars, Venus, and What's Life Got To Do With it
5/5/2009
Felisa Wolfe-Simon
Geobiochemistry and Evolutionary Metallomics: The evolution of life and the biochemical consequences of Earth history
4/28/2009
Stephen Wood
Mars Subsurface Warming at Low Obliquity: Potential for periodic production of liquid water
4/21/2009
George Cody
Geomimetic Biochemistry: How the Origin of Biochemistry may be Linked to the Earth's Early Abiotic Organic Landscape
4/7/2009
Melissa Trainer
Abiotic Chemistry, Atmospheric Hazes, Titan, and the Early Earth
12/2/2008
Tori Hoehler
Quantifying Habitability as Organism/Environment Energy Balance
11/4/2008
Joshua Bandfield
A complex compositional and aqueous history of Mars
10/7/2008
Rory Barnes
Habitability of Tidally-Locked Terrestrial Exoplanets
5/20/2008
Andrew Pohorille
Cyanobacteria in a Lunar Environment
5/13/2008
James Kasting
Was the Early Earth Hot?
4/29/2008
Jeremy Bailey
Using Polarization to Detect and Characterize Extrasolar Planets
4/22/2008
Siegfried Franck
Earth System Analysis: Applications to Astrobiology
4/8/2008
Janet Siefert
Stromatolites: What's Sulfur Got to Do With It?
11/20/2007
Matthew Pasek
Phosphorus and the Origin of Life
11/6/2007
Ram Samudrala
Modelling Interactomes
10/23/2007
Robert M. Winglee
Plasma/Upper Amtospheric Interactions Within the Saturn/Titan System
10/16/2007
Sean Raymond
Exotic Earths: Hot Jupiters, Tidal Evolution, and Ocean Planets
10/9/2007
David Crisp
Measuring CO2 from Space: the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) Mission
10/2/2007
Erika Harnett
Mars: where did all the water go?
5/29/2007
Joe Kirschvink
Four Billion Years of Climate Change (Lessons from the Precambrian): From Oxygen Poisoning to Snowballs & True Polar Wander
5/1/2007
Robert M. Hazen
LEFT & RIGHT: Geochemical origins of life's homochirality
2/20/2007
Megan Elwood Madden
Gas hydrates as planetary-scale water and greenhouse gas reservoirs: Implications for Astrobiology
1/30/2007
Marc Kuchner
From Carbon Planets to Water Planets: The Composition of Low-mass Extrasolar Planets
1/23/2007
Vikki Meadows
Planets Around Other Stars: Exploring Habitability and Spectral Signatures
11/14/2006
David Deamer
Self-assembly Processes in the Prebiotic Environment
10/24/2006
George Shaw
A (not so) Brief History of Carbon on Earth
10/17/2006
Mario Livio
Cosmology and Life
12/6/2005
Eric Agol
The Future of Extrasolar Planet Searches
11/29/2005
Martin Fisk
Life in igneous rocks on Earth and Mars
11/22/2005
Donald Brownlee
A Report on the Stardust Mission
12/7/2004
Maria Rivera
The Ring of Life Provides Evidence for a Genome Fusion Origin of Eukaryotes
11/16/2004
Penny Boston
Life Below and Life "Out There": The Role of Caves in Astrobiology
11/9/2004
Dave Des Marais
The Mars Exploration Rover Mission
11/2/2004
James Murray
The Suboxic Zone in the Black Sea
10/26/2004
Walter Harris
In the rearview mirror: Studying the role of comets in the formation and ongoing evolution of a planetary system
12/9/2003
Steven Benner
Weird Life
11/18/2003
Peter Ward
Why there were dinosaurs; Why there are birds
10/14/2003
Jim Kasting
Methane greenhouses and anti-greenhouses on the early Earth
5/27/2003
Robert Blankenship
The transition from anoxygenic to oxygenic photosynthesis and how it changed the Earth
5/20/2003
Roger Buick
A Subsurface Biota in the Archean?
4/29/2003
Tori Hoehler
Energetic habitability: Boundary conditions for life-as-we-know-it
4/22/2003
Jack Farmer
Microbial biosedimentology of some extreme terrestrial environments with implications for the exploration for extraterrestrial life
4/15/2003
Geoff Garrison
Geochemical Seasonality in a Unique Aquatic Environment: Who needs oxygen, anyway?
table base


Special Events
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
4/24/2012
Daiki Horikawa
UV Radiation Tolerance of Tardigrades
10/17/2011
Eric Boyd
Integrating Geochemistry and (Meta)genomics in the Geothermal Springs in Yellowstone National Park: Mapping the Functional Limits of Life in Early Earth Analog Environments
9/20/2011
Carl Pilcher
Explorer, Nobel Laureate, Astrobiologist: Things you Never Knew About Barry Blumberg
8/11/2011
NAI Students
GSFC Summer Student Presentations
8/12/2010
NAI Students
GSFC Summer Student Presentations
7/12/2010
Oleg Abramov
Impact Bombardments on Early Earth and Mars: Implications for Habitability
4/12/2010
Jennifer Biddle
The Deep Biosphere as seen through Massively Parallel Sequencing
8/5/2009
NAI Students
GSFC Summer Student Presentations
8/6/2008
NAI Students
GSFC Summer Student Presentations
8/1/2007
NAI Students
Summer Student Presentations
table base


NAI Team Overview
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
4/29/2009
NAI Central
Team Overview: NAI Central
4/27/2009
Douglas Whittet
Team Overview: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
4/22/2009
Karen Meech
Team Overview: University of Hawaii
4/20/2009
Roger Summons
Team Overview: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4/15/2009
Michael Mumma
Team Overview: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
4/13/2009
Victoria Meadows
Team Overview: VPL @ University of Washington
4/6/2009
Christopher House
Team Overview: Penn State University
4/1/2009
Loren Williams
Team Overview: Georgia Institute of Technology
3/30/2009
John Peters
Team Overview: Montana State University
3/18/2009
Clark Johnson
Team Overview: University of Wisconsin
3/16/2009
Ariel Anbar
Team Overview: Arizona State University
3/11/2009
Mark Allen
Team Overview: JPL Titan
3/9/2009
Isik Kanik
Team Overview: JPL Icy Worlds
2/25/2009
David Des Marais
Team Overview: NASA Ames Research Center
2/23/2009
George Cody
Team Overview: Carnegie Institution of Washington
table base


Other
DATE
PRESENTER
TITLE
PODCAST
8/18/2006
NAI Students
Summer Student Seminar Series
1/9/2004
Various
Astrobiology Graduate Conference Webcast 3
1/9/2004
Various
Astrobiology Graduate Conference Webcast 4
1/8/2004
Various
Astrobiology Graduate Conference Webcast 1
1/8/2004
Various
Astrobiology Graduate Conference Webcast 2
12/18/2003
Anatoli Pavlov
Age of liquid water on Mars and Martian bugs on Earth?! Where to look for Martian life?
11/1/2002
Peter Jenniskens
An Astrobiology Mission to Explore the 2002 Leonid Storm
table base


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