My research is largely concerned with the habitability potential of planetary bodies within and outside our Solar System especially the possibility of life existing on the terrestrial planets and icy moons of our local neighbourhood. I am interested in where simple life may be hiding in the Solar System today and in the past, how we may be able to detect signs of its existence and how its ‘biosignatures’ are preserved within the geological record. Through this I hope to understand how life may first have arisen on the Earth and its potential to have also begun on other planetary bodies.

My research combines experimental simulations, fieldwork, and spectroscopic analyses, blending geological and biological methods, to better enable biosignature detection within materials on Earth, and ultimately on Mars, Europa, Titan and even within the atmospheres of exoplanets. My current projects focus on the use of Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectroscopy to identify biological materials within geological substrates. I use reflected light IR microscopy and diamond ATR techniques to study the degree of preservation of fatty acids and proteins over geological time within the most environmentally extreme habitats on Earth.