Prior to medical school, I worked as an astrobiology research assistant at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) from 2018 to 2022 under the mentorship of Dr. Brian Hynek. My research focused on characterizing microbial communities in terrestrial volcanic environments that serve as analogs for ancient Martian conditions, helping define habitability constraints and inform strategies for biosignature detection.
During medical school, I was awarded the Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology for my proposal, Microbial and Geochemical Dynamics of Taiwanese Hydrothermal Systems as Analogs for Martian and Icy Moon Astrobiology. This project involves scuba-based sampling of shallow hydrothermal vent systems and will be conducted in the summer of 2026.
For over 4 years, I worked at LASP where I traveled to Costa Rica and Iceland for field sampling, published papers in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences and the International Journal of Astrobiology.
See my work featured on CNN about my research in the Poás Volcano.
