George Mason faculty member helps NASA astrobiology task force shape future goals

George Mason University researcher Anamaria Berea was selected to serve on NASA's Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES) Task Force 1. 

This group of experts was charged with shaping the future of NASA’s astrobiology research over the following decade. As one of only 13 scientists chosen from across the United States, Berea contributed to identifying key research priorities, synthesizing community input, and guiding the development of NASA’s long-term strategy for exploring the origins, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe.

With an interdisciplinary background as a computational data scientist and artificial intelligence researcher, Berea, who is an associate professor in the Department of Computational and Data Sciences, brings a unique perspective to the task force. Most recently, she led the ASPIRE ONE Lunar Record project, a digital time capsule that preserves Earth’s cultural and scientific heritage and offers future lunar visitors a glimpse of life on Earth in the early 2020s. In March, the payload made a successful moon landing, a historic milestone for NASA’s Artemis program. 

The astrobiology task force worked through more than 120 community-submitted papers to recommend nine major themes for the project. These themes, which range from detecting life on other planets to workforce and career development in astrobiology, were discussed and shared with the public at a two-day workshop in May. Phase two of the initiative will invite another task force to take these themes and compose a formalized strategy to support and advance the evolving needs of the field. 

“We have rovers on Mars. We had probes on Venus to sample its atmosphere. But in the next era of space, it looks like there will be a focus on human spaceflight. And if we have humans in space, then how will this change the landscape for astrobiology research?” Berea said. 

Astrobiology research has the potential to tackle some of the most profound cosmological questions humanity faces. It deeply explores the origins of life, suggesting that discovering even simple microbial life on nearby planets like Mars would fundamentally change our understanding of how life began on Earth. 

These big questions capture significant attention from both the scientific community and the general public, highlighting the broad impact and importance of astrobiology research.