The goal of the Habitable Worlds program is to use knowledge of the history of the Earth and the life upon it as a guide for determining the processes and conditions that create and maintain habitable environments (including transient environments) and to search for ancient and contemporary habitable environments and explore the possibility of extant life beyond the Earth.

NASA's Habitable Worlds Program includes elements of the Astrobiology Program, the Mars Exploration Program, the Outer Planets Program, the Planetary Protection Research Program (all in the Planetary Science Division) and Living With a Star in Heliophysics. A common goal of these programs is to identify the characteristics and the distribution of potentially habitable environments in the Solar System and beyond. This research is conducted in the context of NASA’s ongoing exploration of our stellar neighborhood and the identification of biosignatures for in situ and remote sensing applications. For further information on the science scope of Astrobiology, please refer to the Astrobiology roadmap, which can be found on the Astrobiology web page at https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/astrobiology-strategy/. Information on the habitability-related goals of the Mars Exploration Program can be found in the "Mars Science Goals, Objectives, Investigations and Priorities: 2020" document, available on the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group web page at https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm. For the Outer Planets Program, refer to the document "Scientific Goals for Exploration of the Outer Solar System," most recently  updated in 2019 and found on the Outer Planets Assessment Group web site (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag).

Applicants who apply for this research opportunity and are subsequently selected for an NPP award are expected to attend the Astrobiology Graduate Conference (AbGradCon) and/or the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) using the travel funds that are conferred as part of the NPP award.

Field of Science: Astrobiology

Advisors:
Dorian Abbot
abbot@uchicago.edu 
312-914-7172

Julie Castillo
julie.c.castillo@jpl.nasa.gov
818 640 9231 

David Horvath
dhorvath@psi.edu
512-554-1461

Stephen Kane
skane@ucr.edu
951-827-6593

Simone Marchi
marchi@boulder.swri.edu
720-208-7220

Alejandro Soto
asoto@boulder.swri.edu
720-240-0128

Kathryn Steakley
kathryn.e.steakley@nasa.gov
650-604-6078

Alyssa Rhoden
arhoden@asu.edu
303-226-5907

Margaret Turnbull
turnbull.maggie@gmail.com
715-610-0302

Charity Phillips-Lander
clander@swri.edu 
757-401-2346

Tyler Robinson 
tdrobin@arizona.edu
520-907-8369

Eligibility is currently open to:

• U.S. Citizens;
• U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR);
• Foreign Nationals eligible for an Exchange Visitor J-1 visa status; and,
• Applicants for LPR, asylees, or refugees in the U.S. at the time of application with 1) a valid EAD card and 2) I-485 or I-589 forms in pending status

• Degree: Doctoral Degree.