We spoke with Josh Sebree, Astrochemistry and Astrobiology Professor at the University of Northern Iowa, who just received a NASA grant to have his undergraduate students aid NASA research. Please enjoy the interview and Professor Sebree’s exciting, extreme research!
Please tell us about your NASA grant…
Josh: The NASA grant will support supplies needed for our students to take relevant data during fieldwork. These undergraduate students will take a week-long field excursion to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. The students will gather samples to aid NASA with research about Jupiter’s icy moons. The samples will be analyzed on-site with rugged yet complex scientific equipment.
So, your students are going to caves in South Dakota with spectrometers – Why?
Josh: Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota is an extreme environment; there is microbial life in this cave not seen anywhere else in the world. If we want to study life on other planets, we need to understand what some of the extreme adaptations might be. Check out some of the beautiful images below of Wind Cave and our spectroscopic measurements inside.
Why use spectrometers?
Josh: We are using spectrometers on everything from Mastodon Tusks (top image) to methane environments. From the aspect of studying space, we can’t get to most of the locations in space that we want to study. So we send satellites with complex equipment to measure everything from X-rays to uv to visible to near-infrared spectra.
Quoted by NPR, Josh said, “We’re getting a new spectrometer, a lot of sampling apparati, that we don’t have currently so that when the students go they have a much more hands-on, much more realistic type research experience,” he said. “It’s not that they’re just going with a couple of the cheap lab tools.”
How much time does it take to train undergraduate students to use StellarNet spectrometers?
Josh: Depending on the application, it ranges from a couple ofhours to several periods over a few days. For simple colorimetric work, the custom LabView interfaces make data collected simple and straight forward. In many cases, it is not the data acquisition that is the difficult part, but the interpretation.
What can the atmosphere of Titan and Pluto today tell us about Earth 4.5 Billion years ago? Turns out, quite a bit. The atmospheres of Titan and Pluto are both rich in methane, which is photochemically active. We think 4 billion+ years ago, the earth’s atmosphere looked similar. Somewhere about 4.1 Billion years ago, we think that photochemical goo was in the Earth’s atmosphere. So the hypothesis is that if we understand the current methane-rich atmosphere of Pluto and Titan today, we will better understand the methane atmosphere of earth 4.5 billion years ago.
What’s your interest in space?
I’ve always been a space lover; growing up as a kid I loved seeing the new pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. For my Ph.D., I studied the atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, which combined my interest in space with my love of chemistry. I did a two-year post-doc at Goddard Space Flight Center. I came out to Iowa to set up a research lab with undergrads. “I like to work with them; it lets me be a teacher and researcher, without always worrying about the next research grant. I am able to do the work on interesting projects with students and interact with them on a level that is important for their careers, and I’m not just a paper pusher trying to get money.”
Why would the students do research with you versus a normal chemistry lab?
I have 2-15 research undergrads in any given semester. They seek me out when they find out what I’m doing. Research time with me often plays into their stress relief. I get a lot of pre-med students because the work is interesting, it’s fun, it’s chemistry and it lets them think about something outside of their pre-med preparation.
The University Foundation is paying for students’ travel, and the supplies are covered by the NASA Grant. Are there any other benefits of field chemistry for the students?
Chemists normally never get out of the lab, so this might be the first and only field chemistry experience for these students. Plus, they have the ability to push the bounds of known research as part of a regular course they have to take to graduate; they’re not just producing a cookie-cutter lab report. The students who graduated last year all were accepted at their first choice of PhD programs or industrial jobs.
What measurements will you be doing with the new instruments?
This is our first year doing biological sampling. The new liquid cell will help in Cell counting, how many cells are in the water and measuring any of the florescent-based nutrient molecules in that water. We’ve also modified our fiber optic setup for in situ fluorescent measurements of minerals.
If money magically appeared, what would be your next ‘Wish List’ items?
Interestingly, the NASA grant is $25,000 and covers the scientific equipment and supplies needed for the field research. The University of Northern Iowa Foundation (#UNIFoundation) is paying for the students’ travel. And the equipment that we get is not only rugged enough for field study, it’s also powerful enough to be used as our main characterization tools for our in-lab planetary atmospheric set-up. So these instruments are used constantly, not just out on the field. My next wish list item would be the field-based portable Raman setup (https://www.stellarnet.us/analyzers/stellarcase-raman-material-identification/ ).
Stay tuned for the follow-up interview with more details about Josh’s Research where he creates planetary chambers mimicking atmospheres of Titan and Pluto in order to tell us about Earth 4.5 Billion years ago! Sign up for our monthly newsletter!
Josh’s students pictured at an American Chemical Society Conference with the StellarNet SpectraWizard!
