Lynn J. Rothschild Scientist

Lynn Justine Rothschild (born May 11, 1957) is an evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center, and was a consulting Professor at Stanford University, where she taught Astrobiology and Space Exploration. She is an Adjunct Professor at Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. At Ames her research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both on Earth and potentially beyond our planet's boundaries. Since 2007 she has studied the effect of UV radiation on DNA synthesis, carbon metabolism and mutation/DNA repair in the Rift Valley of Kenya and the Atacama desert of Bolivia, and also in high altitude experiments atop Mt. Everest, in balloon payloads with BioLaunch.