Astrobiology is the study of life’s potential in the Universe, but being an astrobiologist doesn’t necessarily mean studying other planets. The Earth itself can teach us a lot about life’s potential in the cosmos. To help astrobiologists explore the Earth, the Lewis and Clark Fund supports the field work of early career scientists. The eight awardees from last year traveled to different corners of the world, from South Africa to the Swedish Lapland. They’ve come back with data, technical know-how, and a few traveler’s tales.

The Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology is supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the American Philosophical Society (APS). The APS played an important role back in 1804 with the “original” Lewis and Clark Expedition. Each year for the past eight years, these organizations select a handful of graduate students and junior scientists to receive financial assistance for astrobiological field studies.

Last year’s recipients of the fund include:

Timothy Gallagher, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Life on Land During the Mesoproterozoic: Evidence from the Midcontinent Rift System in Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario

Cara Harwood, University of California, Davis
Thrombolites as Records of Microbial-Metazoan Ecosystems in Cambrian Carbonates of the Southern Great Basin, Nevada

Jena Johnson, California Institute of Technology
Manganese and the Evolution of Oxygenic Photosynthesis in Northern Cape Province, South Africa

Cassandra Marnocha, University of Arkansas
Geomicrobiology of Rock Coatings from Karkevagge, Swedish Lapland

Roy Price, University of Southern California
Expanding Frontiers for Origin of Life Research: Serpentine-Hosted Shallow-Sea Hydrothermal Vents in New Caledonia

Elizabeth Sibert, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Ichthyoliths Across the KPG Boundary: Response of Pelagic Consumers to a Mass Extinction, Gubbio, Italy

Erik Sperling, Harvard University
Oxygen, Ecology, and the Cambrian Radiation of Animals: Insights Into the Origins of Complex Life From the Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada

Elizabeth G. Wilbanks, University of California, Davis
A Sulfurous Symbiosis: The Dynamic Metatranscriptome of Pink Berries in the Sippewissett Salt Marsh, Falmouth, Massachusetts

For more information on The Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology, visit: http://www.amphilsoc.org/grants/astrobiology