Blair Hedges, Professor of Biology (Director, Astrobiology Summer Program)
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Evolutionary biology and genomics.  The data and methods of molecular evolution are used to estimate divergence times and phylogenies, and other information is drawn from earth history and the fossil record.  The sequence databases, including genomic data, are tapped to address these questions and new sequence data are collected as needed.  Mechanisms responsible for the origin of major groups and their evolutionary radiation are studied and the ultimate goal is to better understand the relationship between the evolution of life and the evolution of Earth's environment.  Possible Summer Program projects include evolutionary analyses of major groups of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and their relation to the origin of eukaryotes, “snowball Earth” events, and the Cambrian Explosion of animals.  

Christopher House, Associate Professor of Geosciences
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Microbial Geobiology.  This laboratory uses diverse techniques including microbial cultivation, genome-wide phylogenetics, and microbial paleontology to understand the evolutionary history of microorganisms on the Earth.  House and his students are involved in projects that include applying the ion microprobe for the study of carbon isotopic composition of microbial cells - past and present, surveying the relationship between gene expression and environmental geochemistry in some microorganisms of interest to Astrobiology, generally expanding the knowledge-base for geochemical microbial signatures such as carbon isotopic fractionation, and developing phylogenetic methods that utilize the whole genomic sequences available in public databases.  Possible Summer Program projects would include study of carbon isotopic fractionation in diverse modern microbes, the analysis of genomic data to explore microbial evolution, and metal leaching from minerals by hyperthermophilic microorganisms.

James Kasting, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences
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Modeling the atmospheres of the early Earth and Earth-like planets.  Professor Kasting and his students make one-dimensional (globally averaged) models of atmospheric photochemistry and climate. They use these models to study the long-term evolution of Earth and to try to estimate what the chances might be of finding Earth-like planets around other stars. These models are reasonably user-friendly and could be used by a summer student to examine different ideas about how Earth's atmosphere might have evolved. Prior experience with Fortran is highly desirable.