NASA-DARES Task Force: Focus Areas 5 and 6

Focus Area 5, Detecting Signs of Living Environments and Living Worlds, highlights work across geomicrobiology and planetary protection. Aaron Regberg is a geomicrobiologist in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at Johnson Space Center; he is working with the Artemis Internal Science Team, serves as the Planetary Protection Officer at JSC, established the microbial monitoring program in Astromaterials Curation facilities, and studies microbe–mineral interactions, forward contamination, and fungal ecology in the built environment.

Dr. Wilhelm is an astrobiologist and planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center who studies biomarker preservation on Mars, has conducted research in Mars analogs such as the Atacama Desert, Iceland, and Antarctica, and leads development of technology and missions to search for molecular fossils from Mars’s most habitable early time period.

Dr.

nasa, dares, geomicrobiology, planetary protection, astrobiology, artemis, microbial monitoring, forward contamination, biomarker preservation, mars analogs