Sarah Chamberlain
BSc (Hons)

PhD Student
RAACE (Research Award for Areas and Centres of Excellence) award

Contact Details: Phone: + 61 2 9850 6289 Email: schamber@els.mq.edu.au

Research Area: Near-InfraRed mineral mapping of Mars

I enrolled at Macquarie University in 1998 and commenced an undergraduate degree in Physics, (choosing all the Astronomy options). However I was told I needed to take up a second science and with little background in Biology and a fear of Chemistry, I randomly chose Geology. I found that I loved it so much that I took an extra year and graduated in 2001 with coherencies in both Astronomy and Geophysics. I completed honours with the Physics department in 2002, investigating the distribution of particles and gases in the Venus atmosphere, using data obtained by Dr David Crisp and Dr Vikki Meadows of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In the last year of my undergraduate degree I took the Astrobiology course GEOS 309 which opened my eyes to an area of study "Planetary Science". In this approach, scientists from every discipline could work together to understand how a planet can evolve from an accumulation of rocky debris to worlds like our own, our neighbouring planets and the alien worlds we are now discovering around distant stars. This really appealed to the Trekkie in me and I found that studying these issues from diverse scientific disciplines really highlighted the complexity of the world around us.

In July 2003 I started my PhD with the Australian Centre for Astrobiology under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Jeremy Bailey and Prof. Malcolm Walter. At about the same time I found myself at an altitude of 4.2 km on top of a dormant volcano in Hawaii (Mauna Kea) observing Mars using a 3.8m telescope (UKIRT). Since then I have also followed on from my honours project with observations of Venus from the 2.3 m ANU telescope at Siding Springs Observatory and discussions in California with our NASA collaborators.

My studies involve interpreting the Near-infrared spectra we obtained of Mars in terms of minerals on the planet's surface to reconstruct past surface environments. Was it at one time covered in sheets of ice, oceans of liquid water, or has it always been the cold dry desert we see today?

In November 2003, I had the opportunity to present my work at the III European Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology: Mars The Search for Life held in Madrid, sponsored by the Centro de Astrobiologia.

In August 2004, I was a finalist in the FreshScience competition in Melbourne that focuses on relating science to the media and the public. This involved speaking to schools, universities and the press on the research that the planetary science group at the ACA (Jeremy Bailey, Andrew Simpson and myself) have conducted.

In November 2004, I had another opportunity to present my work at the 12th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference in Fremantle Perth.

In January 2005, I was able to attend the University of Hawaii, Astrobiology Winter School which involved a series of lectures and fieldtrips associated with the formation and role of water in our solar system. This graduate school was supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

In June/July 2005, I have the opportunity to present and participate in the Vatican Observatory Summer School in Rome.

List of Publications

Chamberlain, S., Bailey, J., Walter, M., Crisp, D., 2003, "Near Infrared Spectra of the Martian Surface" in ESA SP-545, Proceedings of the 3rd European Exo/Astrobiology Workshop, Mars: The search for life (Madrid 2003)

Chamberlain, S., Bailey, J., Walter, M., Crisp, D., 2003, "Near Infrared Spectra of the Martian Surface", Poster paper presented at the 3rd European Exo/Astrobiology Workshop, Mars: The search for life (Madrid 2003)

Bailey, J., Chamberlain, S., Walter, M., Crisp, D., 2003, "Ground Based IR Imaging Spectroscopy of Mars" in ESA SP-545, Proceedings of the 3rd European Exo/Astrobiology Workshop, Mars: The search for life (Madrid 2003)

Chamberlain S. and Bailey J. "Improving the chance of finding fossil microbes on Mars". Microbiology Australia. March 2004; vol 25, pages 26-27.

Bailey, J., Chamberlain, S., Walter, M. and Crisp, D., 2004, "IR Observations of Mars During the August 2003 Opposition." Astrobiology. Vol 4, Number 2, p302. (224 C)

Chamberlain S., Bailey J., Crisp D., Walter M., and Cudahy T. "Near-infrared Multispectral and Hyperspectral Observations of Mars" Proceedings of the 12th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference, October 2004.

Walter M.R., Brown A.J. and Chamberlain S. 2004. "Mars". 2004. Geology of Mars, Encyclopedia of Geology, edited by R. C. Selley, L. R. M. Cocks and I. R. Plimer, Elsevier, London, UK, p. 271-282.

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Last Updated: Jan 30 2006