Astrobiology Graduate Conference 2025 | Dark Skies, Bright Futures

Conference Program and Presenter Information

Conference Schedule/Overview

Non-Academia Careers in Astrobiology Panel

This year at AbGradCon, we wanted to try a different sort of outreach event that harnesses the great location of CU Boulder. On the evening of the first full day of programming (June 11th), we are hosting a Careers in Astrobiology panel!

This moderated panel focuses on career paths and trajectories that are outside of the normal academia routes, and we are happy to host the following panelists, most of whom are local to Boulder:

Barbra Sobhani (Colorado Space Grant Consortium)

Dr. Graham Lau (Blue Marble Space Institute for Science)

Jack Kiraly (Director of Government Relations, The Planetary Society)

Dr. Katherine French (United States Geological Survey)

As we approach the conference dates, keep an eye on your email! We will be soliciting pre-submitted questions for our panelists.

Read More About Our Panelists

At AbGradCon2025, each presenter will be assigned one of these three presentation formats:

Talks: Talks should be 12 minutes long, with three minutes at the end for questions and transitions to the next speaker. We will ask you to come to the podium and load your talk at the break/mealtime immediately prior to your assigned session.

Posters: Posters should be in a 36" by 48" format (horizontal/landscape oriented). We recommend that you print your poster BEFORE the conference and travel to Boulder with your printed poster.

Posters with lightning talks: The best of both worlds, some poster presentations are also accompanied by a lightning talk! Posters should follow the same format detailed above for standard posters. There will be a lightning talk session prior to both poster sessions, where those who have been assigned a lightning talk will have four minutes to share a brief overview/preview of their poster. We recommend making a separate slide deck for this. Timing will be strict, so we will cut you off if you exceed the allotted lightning talk time.

Talk Schedule

AbGradCon 2025 Talk Schedule

Lightning Talks Schedule

Note: your poster presentation will be the same day as your assigned lightning talk.

Lightning talks schedule

Poster Schedule

Note: If you have a poster and lightning talk, your poster presentation will be on the same day as your assigned lightning talk (see schedule above).

Posters on Thursday, June 12th

Posters [1] - [17] are the same as the lightning talk numbers of this day.

[18] Maximos Goumas: Bioenergetic and Modeling of Methanogens in Europa's Subsurface Ocean

[19] Pablo de Lucía Finkel: Simulated cosmic radiation on lipid biomarkers

[20] Theophilus Eshun: Survival of Spacecraft-Associated Bacteria in Eutectic Brines on Mars

[21] Jourdan Waas: The impact of AGN on Habitable Worlds

[22] Jiarui Liu: Developing Methane Clumped Isotopes as Interplanetary Biosignatures

[23] Augustine Debrah: Droplet Microfluidics: Simulating Prebiotic Atmospheric Chemistry

[24] Harshal Wasnik: Exploring Microbial Evolution of Extremophiles in Terrestrial Analogs

[25] Fruzsina Madzig: Clues to Life’s Origin: Pseudofossils & Autocatalysis on Early Earth

[26] Lea Adepoju: Methane-Fueled Microbes Overlying a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Brine

[27] Anurup Mohanty: Microbial Activity and Survival Strategies in the Deep Subsurface

[28] Rosanna Garris: Inverstigating change in protein mobility during carboxysome formation

[29] Denver Talley: Investigating the Photodissociation Characteristics of PAHs

[30] Ruixiang Zhai: Glaciation-driven Onset of Modern Biological N2 Fixation during GOE

[31] Laura Denton: The Formation of (Poly)Cyclic Molecules Under Extreme Conditions

[32] Adesh Natthuji Thawale: Self-assembly driven polymerization of prebiotic proto-nucleotides

Posters on Friday, June 13th

Posters [1] - [16] are the same as the lightning talk numbers of this day.

[17] Jingyi Cao: Role of y-phosphate in genome replication

[18] Zoe Gold: Silica precipitation experiments: assessing organic acid controls

[19] Hanalei Lewine: Photochemical Sulfur Speciation in Archean Analog Atmospheres

[20] Withdrawn

[21] Meghan Craughwell: Investigating the Mackenzie Delta region as “wet, cold” Mars analog

[22] Romulo Cruz Simbron: Molecular biosignature based on machine learning and autocorrelation

[23] Javier Garcia: Modeling The Habitat Suitability Of Venus’s Atmosphere

[24] Lauren Kafadarian: High throughput experiments to constrain icy moon oceanic properties

[25] Salvador Maldonado: The Tar Pit: A Natural Laboratory to Study Hydrocarbon Biodegradation

[26] Afaaq Zahid: Earth to Mars: Permafrost Membrane Resistance Structures

[27] Lauren Judge: Stromatolite Records of Lake History, Lake Joyce, Antarctica

[28] Sarah Swiersz: Forming Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the AbGradCon Community

[29] Gillyan Valencia: Evolutionary Dynamics of Microbial Communities in Geothermal Springs

[30] Lu Zhang: The Possibility for Migration of Life between Habitable Planets

[31] Yang Liu: Survival strategies and applications for microbes exposed in space.

[32] Katelyn Palmer: Salts alter the radiation effects on biosignatures in ice

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse