In May, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign profiled Kennda Lynch, postdoc and member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute team at Georgia Tech, tracing how she’s grown from an engineering major at Illinois to become a multidisciplinary researcher in the NASA astrobiology community.

Lynch describes how her emerging fascination with astrobiology combined with opportunity, setting her on a path where she currently researches Mars analog environments found in Utah, work that helps NASA narrow down potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 rover and informs future Mars human missions.

Read the full story at the Engineering at Illinois website.