NASA Postdoctoral Program - Organic Complexity Patterns for Life Detection

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 agnostic biosignature frameworks that investigate organic molecular patterns that can be used to understand the source and physicochemical history of naturally occurring suites of compounds. Potential research projects will explore molecular complexity metrics that can differentiate between biological and abiotic reaction products. This research could encompass methodological as well as analytical elements that inform organic detection and interpretation of planetary analog materials that could include abiotic organic samples, biological organic samples, degraded biological organic matter, and environmental samples with mixed organic sources or properties related to targeted solar system objects. Studies should take advantage of existing ultrahigh resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry laboratory capability for the molecular analysis of organic molecules in geological, hydrological, and biological samples. The research is based at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and focuses on astrobiology research related to life detection, particularly for current and future missions such as Mars, Titan, Enceladus, and Europa.