Melissa G. Trainer (born April 22, 1978) is an American astrobiologist who in 2004 demonstrated empirically that life could have formed on Earth through the interaction of methane, carbon dioxide and ultraviolet light (sunlight). She is Assistant Chief for Science, Operations, and Strategic Planning in the Planetary Environments Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Early life and education

Raised in northern New Jersey since the age of four, Trainer attended

Hackensack High School Hackensack High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Hackensack, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Hackensack Public Schools. Hackensack High School serves students from the Bergen County, ...

,Saks, Kaet
"She'll reap the rewards of continuous activity"
''

The Record (Bergen County) ''The Record'' (also called ''The North Jersey Record'', ''The Bergen Record'', ''The Sunday Record'' (Sunday edition) and formerly ''The Bergen Evening Record'') is a newspaper in New Jersey, United States. Serving Bergen, Essex, Hudson and ...

'', November 14, 1995, backed up by the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

as of March 6, 2016. Accessed August 13, 2018. "Hackensack High School senior Melissa Trainer finds herself with an embarrassment of riches" from which she graduated as Valedictorian in 1996. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at

Franklin and Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1787 as Franklin College and later merged with Marshall College in 1853, it is one of the oldest colleges in the United St ...

in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 2000, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Abstract Mathematics. She completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

in 2006, where she worked with Margaret A. Tolbert. Her dissertation was “Laboratory Studies of Organic Haze Aerosols in Simulated Planetary Atmospheres”.

Research

As a doctoral student with Melissa A. Tolbert at the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a Public university, public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a Federated state, state, it is the fla ...

in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, working in the field of

atmospheric chemistry Atmospheric chemistry is a branch of atmospheric science that studies the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets. This multidisciplinary approach of research draws on environmental chemistry, physics, meteorology, comput ...

, Trainer conducted two experimental studies on the formation of aerosols (

tholin Tholins (after the Greek (') "hazy" or "muddy"; from the ancient Greek word meaning "sepia ink") are a wide variety of organic compounds formed by solar ultraviolet or cosmic rays, cosmic ray irradiation of simple carbon-containing compounds su ...

s) in the early atmosphere of Earth and the current atmosphere of

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

. Project investigator Owen Toon reported, "As had been predicted in some theoretical studies we found that the production rate of aerosols declines as the abundance of CO₂ relative to methane increases in simulated terrestrial atmospheres." Trainer and her coexperimenters reported on their findings in ''Astrobiology'' in a 2004 paper called "Haze Aerosols in the Atmosphere of Early Earth: Manna from Heaven". She later presented the findings at the 2006

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in March 2006 where she was recognized for her work. Trainer was a graduate research assistant at the University of Colorado, Boulder from 2000 to 2006, and a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Astrobiology Institute from 2006 to 2009. As of 2009 she became a planetary atmospheric chemist at

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...

. As of 2015, she became Assistant Chief for Science, Operations, and Strategic Planning in the Planetary Environments Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Trainer continues to study the properties of Titan and early Earth aerosol analogs, using a wide variety of techniques including chemical, optical, and isotopic characterizations of analogs. She is active in astrobiology projects examining Mars, Titan, Venus.

''Dragonfly'' mission

On June 27, 2019,

selected the ''

Dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threat ...

'' mission to

as the next project of the New Frontiers exploration program. Trainer is the co-Deputy Principal Investigator.

References

External links

Dragonfly mission page

Trainer presentation about Titan and Dragonfly at the Library of Congress
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trainer, Melissa 1978 births Living people American women biochemists Franklin & Marshall College alumni Hackensack High School alumni People from Hackensack, New Jersey American astrobiologists 21st-century American women scientists