By Dr Jennifer Wadsworth
Research Associate, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Dr. Jennifer Wadsworth is a microbiologist and space scientist with research interests in the fields of radiation biology, sterilisation and microbial resistance, and who is passionate about promoting science communication and outreach.
She received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2018, the focus of which was exploring microbial responses to extreme radiation environments on Earth as well as space. Her research encompassed high radiation experiments probing the analogue photochemistry of the Martian surface, as well as experiments on board the International Space Station. She also conducted ultra-low radiation experiments in the Boulby Underground Laboratory, situated approx. 1km underground in a working mine in the north of England. She was since awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at NASA Ames Research Center in California, where she worked on developing novel clean room sterilisation techniques to prevent unwanted contamination of space exploration equipment.
She currently works in Switzerland at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in the medical engineering department. This is where the ESA-funded Biotechnology Space Support Centre is located, which provides testing of and support for European biotechnology and life science contributions to space exploration.