Heidi Aronson
Planetary Protection Engineer
Heidi.Aronson@jpl.nasa.gov
Office: (818) 354-3379
Biography
Heidi is a recent graduate of Occidental College, where she studied marine biology and cellular and molecular biology. At Occidental, she spent two years researching the microbiome of a deep-sea, bone-eating snail. Heidi was an intern and Caltech SURF student with the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group from 2013-2016. She worked on various projects including preparation of spore coupons for the Biofilm Organisms Surfing Space (BOSS) project and implementation of MALDI-TOF MS for bacterial archiving. As a Planetary Protection Engineer, Heidi will assist with mission implementation for Mars 2020.
Research Interests
- Environmental microbiology
- Microbial symbiosis
- Biogeochemistry
- Astrobiology
- Extremophile biology
Professional Experience
2015-2016, Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
2013-2014, JPL Student Independent Research Intern
Education
2016, BA, Biology, Occidental College
Selected Publication
Aronson, H. S., A. J. Zellmer, and S. K. Goffredi. "The Specific and Exclusive Microbiome of the Deep-Sea Bone-Eating Snail, Rubyspira osteovora." FEMS Microbiology Ecology (2016): fiw250.