I lead the Origins and Habitability Laboratory at JPL. Visit the lab's website for more details about our research, lab news, and facilities. 

Interested in an internship? I take several interns each year, some of whom continue for several years e.g. working on a thesis project. More info here and here. 

Below are the OHL lab members currently working on projects that I supervise. 

Nancy is a Geosciences graduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She works on determining the degree of diagenesis on Mars, specifically looking at if there are S-containing organic minerals from Vera Rubin Ridge and Glen Torridon, mainly focusing on Mn sulfides. She is simulating the growth of hydrothermal chimneys with conditions analogous to the Strytan hydrothermal field in Iceland, an analog to hydrothermal environments on early Mars.

Cathy is a Master's student in Civil Engineering at Cal State LA. She has her B.S. in Environmental Biology from Cal Poly Pomona and her work focuses on assessing the fate and transport of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in hydrothermal vent systems.

Julia is a Master's student in Environmental Engineering at Cal State LA. She has a Bachelor’s in Mathematics from Lewis & Clark College. She is simulating hydrothermal vents in the lab. In particular, she will study saponite precipitates: their use in carbon dioxide sequestration and their relevance to habitable environments on early Earth and early Mars.

Bonnie is a JPL Postdoctoral Researcher working on the InVADER vent exploration project. Her research focuses on organic geochemistry in hydrothermal systems with applications to ocean worlds, Mars, and life detection.

Katherine is a JPL Postdoctoral Researcher working on astrobiology on ocean worlds, including prebiotic chemistry and phosphorus chemistry under Enceladus conditions. 

Tess is a Ph.D. student in planetary sciences at Caltech. She is working on simulating proto-metabolic reactions driven by chemical garden precipitates under ocean world (Enceladus) conditions.

Jessica Weber earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT and a B.S. in Chemistry from U of Chicago, and was a JPL Postdoctoral Researcher. Jessica is a JPL Research Scientist involved in various astrobiology research projects, including exploring how protein cofactors behave under early Earth conditions.

Matt is a biochemistry undergraduate student at Citrus College. He is studying prebiotic chemistry in Mars relevant mineral systems, and is a student collaborator with the Mars Science Laboratory team.

Seneca is a doctoral student in Materials Science at Caltech. He is working on creating catalytic scaffolds for prebiotic hydrothermal chimney simulations in the OHL.