Lisa M. Pratt joined NASA as the Planetary Protection Officer in 2017 and, previously, was a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington. She holds a geology PhD from Princeton University, a geology MS from the University of North Carolina, and a botany MS from the University of Illinois. Her research expertise is microbial communities in sulfide- and methane-based ecosystems. From 2011 to 2016, she conducted field studies on the margin of the Greenland ice sheet, recovering samples of microbial biomass and methane from lakes under ice-covered and ice-free conditions. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal papers in co-authorship with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
