Exobiology: Large-scale Environmental Change and Macro-Evolution

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific research opportunity focuses on the study of the macro-evolution of life on Earth, including evaluation of environmental factors such as latitudinal differences, extraterrestrial influences (bolide impacts, orbital and solar variations, gamma-ray bursts), and planetary processes (Snowball Earth events, rapid climate change) on the large-scale evolution of life on Earth. Of particular interest are mass extinction events. Selected fellows are expected to attend the Astrobiology Graduate Conference (AbGradCon) and/or the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) using the travel funds conferred as part of the NPP award.