About Us
Greetings, and welcome to the Origins and Habitability Lab. We are located in the Los Angeles area at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Our research focuses on several main areas including: the origin of life on Earth and other worlds, geochemical requirements for habitability, and understanding how life can be distinguished from abiotic organic processes in geological systems. We are astrobiologists who seek to understand how life began on Earth, and how we may find habitable environments elsewhere in the solar system and in the universe. Our group has strong ties with other local institutions including California State University Los Angeles; California Institute of Technology; and the Los Angeles Natural History Museum.
Lab Principal Investigators (PIs)
Laurie Barge
Laurie Barge is a Senior Research Scientist in astrobiology at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is also affiliated with the Oak Crest Institute of Science. She studies the emergence of life on Earth and ways to search for life elsewhere, particularly focusing on how minerals affect chemistry for the emergence of life on early Earth, Mars, and "ocean worlds" such as Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Jessica Weber
Jessica Weber is a Research Scientist in Prebiotic Chemistry at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is also affiliated with the Oak Crest Institute of Science. Jessica seeks to constrain abiotic organic chemistry possible within the solar system to answer questions about possible origins of life type events as well as biosignature identification.
Contact Us
Interested in joining the group as a student, collaborator, postdoc? Please reach out to the PI’s directly.
CL#26-0521