How to Hunt for Aliens: Finding Darwin beyond Planet Earth

Darwin utterly changed our understanding of the source of the diversity of life on Earth, and with it, our origin. But is our origin story one of a multitude—or are we unique or, indeed, alone in the cosmos? With Darwin as our guide, we are now in a position to go forth and search. Join evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild for a special talk in honor of Darwin Day.

Lynn Rothschild is passionate about the evolution of life on Earth or elsewhere, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. Just as travel abroad permits new insights into home, so too the search for life elsewhere allows a more mature scientific, philosophical and ethical perception of life on Earth. She wears these hats as a senior scientist NASA's Ames Research Center as well as Adjunct Professor at Brown University, and the University of California Santa Cruz. Her research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. Rothschild has brought her creativity to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the future of synthetic biology as an enabling technology for NASA's missions, including human space exploration and astrobiology. Since 2011 she has been the faculty advisor of the award-winning Stanford-Brown iGEM team, which has pioneered the use of synthetic biology to accomplish NASA’s mission, particularly focusing on the human settlement of Mars, astrobiology and such innovative technologies as BioWires and making a biodegradable UAS (drone) and bioballoon. Her lab will be begin to move these plans into space in the form of the PowerCell synthetic biology secondary payload on a DLR satellite, EuCROPIS, scheduled to launch in July 2017. She is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, The California Academy of Sciences and the Explorer’s Club. In 2015 she was awarded the Isaac Asimov Award from the American Humanist Association, and was the recipient of the Horace Mann Award from Brown University. More importantly, she is a Yale graduate (Saybrook, '78).