Emily R. Paris

Emily is a graduate student with Anne Dekas at Stanford University and recently defended her PhD thesis on the limits of microbial life in hypersaline environments. In 2020, she earned her bachelor's degree in Biochemistry & Cell Biology with a minor in Marine Sciences from UC San Diego. As an undergraduate, she worked with Bradley Moore at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop a technique for isolating previously unculturable marine microbes that could be used in pharmaceutical development. Now her research is based on culture-independent techniques, including single-cell analysis with nanoSIMS, microscopy, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Emily has completed eight research cruises and one land-based field expedition since 2019. Two of these field projects included snorkeling with orcas above the Arctic circle to understand how environmental change affects their bioacoustics and behavioral patterns and sampling Mars-analogue acidic brine lakes in Western Australia to look for signs of extreme microbial life in support of NASA’s future life detection missions. Aside from her PhD work, Emily has supported research aimed at increasing the safety of human spaceflight as a volunteer test subject for NASA. She is also a certified scientific SCUBA diver and enjoys rock climbing, backpacking, and piloting gliders in her free time.