Joining us in February of 2024 is Crystal Han, who will be working through NASA Ames with Drs. Sylvain Costes and Lauren Sanders. Crystal graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and minor in Bioinformatics. She then received a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics from San Jose State University in December 2021. Her research project involved building data pipelines to perform differential gene expression analyses. Prior to joining GeneLab, Crystal worked as a research data analyst in Dr. Frank […]

Rajat Bhushan Gupta is an Astrobiologist with a background in engineering and data science with a deep commitment to interdisciplinary research and education. He is currently pursuing master’s in the biology of extreme environments from the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy. He blends technology with life sciences to explore the origins of life and life beyond Earth. Rajat has over a decade of experience in Python, machine learning, and data science, having worked in diverse industries—ranging from healthcare […]

We’re excited to have Dr. Barbara Novak joining BMSIS as a Staff Scientist through the NASA GeneLab at Ames Research Center. Dr. Novak will be working with Drs. Sylvain Costes (NASA Ames) and Lauren Sanders (BMSIS). Dr. Novak is an experienced bioinformatician with over 15 years of industry experience providing bioinformatics support for genomic assay product development. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the California Institute of Technology, but quickly decided that she’d rather solve computational challenges. Barbara […]

By Jenna Cammerino We’ve all wished upon stars or maybe even shouted at the moon, but sometimes it just feels like the Universe never answers our calls. Well, as it turns out, the Universe is actually singing to us. In late June this past summer, a set of papers was put out by NANOGrav consisting of over 15 years worth of data collection describing the very phenomenon. NANOGrav stands for the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves and it […]

The Lost City Hydrothermal Field is a unique vent field located in the Atlantic Ocean along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This vent system is the only one discovered so far on Earth to have been created through a process called “serpentinization”, a chemical and geological interaction between Earth’s mantle and seawater. Hydrogen is produced here as a by-product of the reaction, which fuels the generation of compounds that are considered the precursors of DNA and could possibly give clues as to […]

Hello! My name is Beatriz Akiti, I am currently finishing my studies as an undergrad student in the University of São Paulo, in Brazil. Since I was a child, I have had a great curiosity about our own world and the worlds beyond. I loved investigating and understanding our relationships with the living beings around me and the way everything worked. Not only did this influence my interest in sustainability, but it was my great inspiration for me to pursue […]

Hello everyone! My name is Gülay, and I am an undergraduate student majoring in Molecular Biology & Genetics at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. When I was a little kid, I want to become a scientist and work in lab enviroment. I always love biology and I want to understand mechanisms of living organisms; therefore, I choosed molecular biology and genetics as a study field. Then, I wanted to learn deeply evolution because it is a bases for biology. I became […]

Hello everyone! I’m Alexis Torres, a new Staff Scientist here at Blue Marble. I recently completed my MS in Bioinformatics at San Jose State University. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, I got my first look at the scientific community’s fervor and collaboration in addressing pressing challenges, which was truly inspiring. At the same time, I was learning about applications of bioinformatics in astrobiology, and was compelled to get involved in this frontier in biological research. This led me to join […]

I am a space microbiology enthusiast from Kurdistan. Back when I was in high school, I used to be very good at science but I wouldn’t use it as a way of knowledge. This changed when, before joining university, I picked up some scientific books from the likes of Stephen Hawking’s Theory of Everything and Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden and read them avidly. These readings and further intellectual practices changed my mindset about the world and science and […]

I am Payel Das, an undergrad student from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I study microbiology, which I really enjoy. But I also have had a huge passion for astronomy forever. So, I kept searching for a subject that combines my interests. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I found out about astrobiology, an exciting and relatively new field that connects both astronomy and microbiology. As an undergraduate aspiring researcher, I was searching for space-related research opportunities in my country. But sadly, […]