The Summons Lab • Geobiology and Astrobiology at MIT

Current Role: I’m an Associate Professor in the Geosciences Department at Williams College, a liberal arts college in the Berkshires.  Years at MIT: 2010-2012 Favorite Memory: Wow so many! I got to go to Australia twice while I was at MIT to help create virtual field trips for the NASA Astrobiology grant I was working […]

Here at the Summons Lab, we’re always working to enhance our science outreach efforts, and sometimes, that involves seeking inspiration online from peers in the organic geochemistry community. Outreach isn’t a one-person job — it’s a community effort!

When we search for life beyond Earth, we have to figure out what we could measure that would tell us that life was, or is, there. And the starting place for that search must be Earth itself, the only place where we know for sure that life has lived. Every rock tells a story, and […]

Undergraduate Juliana Drozd looks for the synthesis of a “sunscreen” pigment in microbes and experiences the struggles of a budding scientist. by Fernanda Ferreira | MIT Science Writing “This is my first time doing this without supervision,” Juliana Drozd said as she squirted ethanol on the lab bench and wiped it clean. “We’ll be fine,” […]

Somewhere between 2.3 and 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth experienced a monumental atmospheric shift, setting the stage for complex life to emerge. EAPS researchers are looking for markers in the rock record providing clues as to how and why—and exactly when. By Fatima Husain The accumulation of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere marks the […]

Excerpt: “I always liked history and human evolution, the mysteries of our history were my passion as a kid, but also liked a lot nature and Earth history. In college I decided to study history, with a major in Prehistory. From my freshman year I joined a archaeological excavation on Neanderthals. There I discovered you […]

A collaboration of current and former EAPS researchers reveals the genes that enable GDGTs to cyclize  by Fatima Husain Nestled within sediments that accumulate in marine environments, a certain class of molecule-sized fossils sneakily record surface water temperature changes over time. For almost two decades, scientists have used these molecules called glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraet…

by Fatima Husain When Robert F. Scott’s Discovery expedition began their exploration of the Antarctic continent in 1901, they set out to achieve two goals: to geographically and scientifically characterize the regions touched by the Ross Sea. As the group of naval officers and scientists set foot upon the Ross Ice Shelf, they mapped their travels and […]

Are you applying to graduate programs related to oceanography this fall? If so, consider the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography! The deadline to apply is December 15th, 2019. This year, the Joint Program has a volunteer mentorship program organized by current students, called JP ASK, to provide advice on the application process.

On Friday, November 1st, Angel Mojarro and Roger Summons shared research summaries of their work to the MIT EAPS community as part of the EAPS Active Talk Series. Angel spoke about soft tissue preservation in fossil fish, while Roger spoke about soft tissue preservation and pigments in an ankylosaur fossil, as well as gut microbiome […]