AbSciCon brings together astrobiology community May 5-10 in Providence

May 2, 2024

The Astrobiology Science Conference brings together hundreds of scientists from around the world every two years, and as it prepares to open Sunday in Providence, two University of Rhode Island scientists are the lead organizers of the nation’s largest conference focused on the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe.

More than 800 attendees are expected for AbSciCon 2024, which runs May 5-10 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in downtown Providence. The conference, hosted by NASA, attracts an interdisciplinary group of scientists that make up the astrobiology community to share new research and insights, collaborate, and discuss the future of the field. While most conference sessions – plenary talks, research presentations and poster sessions – are open only to attendees, there are numerous astrobiology-themed events that are free and open to the public.

URI GSO professor Art Spivack and CELS professor Dawn Cardace are organizers for the conference. And other URI community members will be presenting at the conference. GSO Dean Paula Bontempi will give a plenary talk on the conference’s closing day, and doctoral students Cybele Collins and Gladys Adenikinju will discuss their research during poster sessions. 

“NASA has this conference to specifically bring together all the disciplines that contribute to astrobiology,” said Cardace, professor of geosciences. “There are over 5,000 planets orbiting other stars way beyond our solar system. A healthy slice of those actually occur in the habitable zone of their parent star. This isn’t a purely academic endeavor anymore. Now we are able to visualize planetary atmospheres and screen them for biosignature gasses.”

“This is the major conference that brings together all areas of astrobiology to one venue,” added Spivack. “Part of it is a cross-fertilization between researchers in the different related fields. It ultimately informs how we formulate questions that we want to resolve and what missions NASA wants to support.”

Across URI, NASA-related science is “braided” into programs such as oceanography, the College of the Environment Life Sciences, and engineering—even among faculty who look at the ethical and philosophical elements of “doing science beyond our own boundaries,” said Cardace, a former NASA postdoctoral fellow at NASA Ames Research Center in California.

Cardace’s research has been funded in part by the NASA Astrobiology Institute since 2010. More recently, she, along with fellow URI researchers Soni Pradhanang and Serena Moseman-Valtierra, has been exploring methane emission dynamics in ultramafic rocks, which are common to Earth and Mars. The three-year project is supported by a $735,000 grant from NASA EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research).

Spivack’s research focuses on understanding and quantifying the metabolism and extent of microbial life in the seafloor. In 2001, Spivack and fellow oceanography professor Steven D’Hondt formed URI’s NASA Astrobiology Institute. The five-year grant enabled research that used seafloor studies as analogs for life on other planets, and supported the creation of an Honors Program course on life in the universe, he said. 

Bontempi, dean of the GSO since September 2020, is a former acting deputy director at NASA’s Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate and was a physical scientist and program manager for ocean biography and biogeochemistry at NASA Headquarters for more than 16 years. She is currently a member of NASA’s study team on unidentified aerial phenomena. On May 10, she will deliver a plenary talk on “Ocean Worlds Near and Far.”

“She’s the perfect person to give a plenary because she works in ocean-world environments,” said Cardace, who organized the conference’s science program. “She knows an enormous amount about the terrestrial ocean. So many worlds out there beyond our solar system are thought to have oceans, whether they be liquid on the surface or under an ice shell.”

Adenikinju, a Ph.D. student in biological and environmental sciences, environmental and earth sciences specialization, in CELS, and a research assistant for Cardace, will present her research on iron geomicrobiology, or how life uses iron in diverse environments on Earth and other planets. Collins, a Ph.D. candidate studying biogeochemical cycles and research assistant in Cardace’s lab, will discuss her work on the carbon cycle, looking at two very different study sites – salt marshes and ophiolites. 

“Presenting work is a part of a larger dialogue with the community,” said Collins. “It will be exciting to meet people whose work I admire, and that includes most of the people at the conference. I’ve felt welcomed by the astrobiology community before I even realized what it was. At first I tried research areas that I thought were more practical, but many aspects of astrobiological research are very practical. It’s about looking at Earth in terms of what we have and what is possible.”

Collins worked with Spivack and other URI faculty and students to help organize the conference’s public events. The free, public events include:

On Tuesday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m., an art show, “Inside Stars and Bodies,” will be held at the convention center. Along with the works of nearly 30 artists, a pinball machine created by artist and retired engineer Robert Kieronski of Newport will be on display. The pinball machine uses circulating liquids and electrical discharges to recreate a seminal experiment by Nobel laureate Harold Urey and his student Stanley Miller that simulated conditions present at the origin of life on Earth. 

“I proposed the art show to the AbSciCon local organizing committee,” said Collins, a Rhode Island School of Design alumna who curated the show. “I wanted a place for artists to encounter science and vice versa. Science does not seem like an inviting world to many people, but it can and should be for everyone.”

On Thursday night, May 9, at 6:30 p.m., Jason Dworkin, senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, will convene a small panel to discuss a NASA mission that gained worldwide attention. The NASA space probe OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) recovered a sample from the 4.5 billion-year-old Bennu asteroid that contained water and carbon.  After the plenary, “Moons of Jupiter,” a multimedia musical presentation, will start at 7:30 p.m. in the Convention Center’s Junior Ballroom. The presentation includes musicians Kevin Gilmore and Jacob Richman, URI adjunct faculty members.