NASA Postdoctoral Program - ICAR - Virtual Planetary Laboratory

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 opportunity focuses on the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL), which addresses the compelling scientific question: 'How can we best assess whether an exoplanet supports life?' The VPL will advance interdisciplinary biosignature science by identifying new potential biosignatures for exoplanets, developing an improved understanding of abiotic mimics and the statistical framework needed to interpret biosignatures in the context of their environment, determining the detectability of biosignatures and environmental context for multiple observing platforms, and undertaking biosignature assessment activities that will support and enhance the science return from NASA's JWST and the HabWorlds Large Infrared Optical UV space-based direct imaging telescope. The research will focus on tasks to identify, interpret, detect and assess biosignatures for exoplanet observations, providing the scientific foundation needed to identify the biosignatures that are most likely to be detectable and the environmental context needed to interpret them.