Kennda Lynch

Kennda Lian Lynch is an American astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist who studies polyextremophiles. She has primarily been affiliated with NASA. She identifies environments on Earth with characteristics that may be similar to environments on other planets, and creates models that help identify characteristics that would indicate an environment might host life. Lynch also identifies what biosignatures might look like on other planets. Much of Lynch's research on analog environments has taken place in the Pilot Valley Basin in the Great Salt Desert of northwestern Utah, U.S. Her work in that paleolake basin informed the landing location of NASA's Perseverance Rover mission—at another paleolake basin called Jezero Crater. Jim Green, Chief Scientist at NASA, called Lynch "a perfect expert to be involved in the Perseverance rover." Helping to select the proper landing site for NASA's first crewed mission to Mars in 2035 is another of Lynch's projects. Lynch has appeared in multiple television series, as well as The New York Times, Scientific American, and Popular Science.

Early life and education Kennda Lynch is the daughter of Marlene Cosby and Kenneth Lynch. and was a zoology major who wanted to be a veterinarian. Lynch was also Girl Scout, including being appointed as the student delegate to the National Girl Scout Program Conference. Lynch was raised spending a lot of time in nature. In 1999, Lynch was team leader for a NASA competition that was part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program at Ellington Field, near Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. She completed her Ph.D. in 2015

While at graduate school, Lynch was a graduate research assistant, first at BioServe Space Technologies and then at the Laboratory For Atmospheric and Space Physics. Her work was affiliated with NASA through NASA's Harriett Jenkins Pre-Doctoral Fellowship which funded her role as a predoctoral research fellow at the Colorado School of Mines. When Lynch received a grant from the Ford Foundation she shifted her primary base of operations to the lab of EAS Assistant Jennifer Glass. During this period, astrobiology research took off at Georgia Tech, and Lynch was part of the Georgia Tech NASA Astrobiology Institute team.

Teaching, outreach, and mentoring Lynch teaches and mentors students and also works to expand diversity in STEM education. She served a two-year term as a NASA Students Ambassador from 2010 to 2012. Additionally, Lynch does a lot of explaining of space science to the public, both directly and through the media. In other words, all life uses energy and excretes waste products. Some of those waste products might be preserved and appear as biosignatures, telling us that life exists—or formerly existed. Lynch identifies biosignatures in environments on Earth that might be analogous to ones on other planets, teaching us what signals we might use to recognize extraterrestrial life. Ultimately, Jezero Crater was selected as the landing site for the 2020 Mars mission, Perseverance, because it is also a paleolake. She will collaborate with University of Florida's Amy Williams on sample analysis and Georgetown University's Sarah Stewart on creating a tool for “Working Towards Life Detection Capability in Subsurface Transitional Habitable Zones on Mars.” Geobiology, Astrobiology, Planetary and Space Science, as well as a peer reviewer for grants with the NASA Exobiology Program Peer Review Panel and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF). Lynch also serves on the organizing committee of many conferences in her field and is a frequent presenter at conferences.

Astrobiology Hays, Lindsay E.; Graham, Heather V.; Des Marais, David J.; Hausrath, Elisabeth M.; Horgan, Briony; McCollom, Thomas M.; Parenteau, M. Niki; Potter-McIntyre, Sally L.; Williams, Amy J.; Lynch, Kennda L. (2017-02-08). "Biosignature Preservation and Detection in Mars Analog Environments". Astrobiology. 17 (4): 363–400. doi:10.1089/ast.2016.1627. Abrevaya, Ximena C.; Anderson, Rika; Arney, Giada; Atri, Dimitra; Azúa-Bustos, Armando; Bowman, Jeff S.; Brazelton, William J.; Brennecka, Gregory A.; Carns, Regina; Chopra, Aditya; Colangelo-Lillis, Jesse (2016-08-01). Domagal-Goldman, Shawn D.; Wright, Katherine E.; Domagal-Goldman, Shawn D.; Wright, Katherine E.; Adamala, Katarzyna; Arina de la Rubia, Leigh; Bond, Jade; Dartnell, Lewis R.; Goldman, Aaron D. (eds.). "The Astrobiology Primer v2.0". Astrobiology. 16 (8): 561–653. doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1460. Stoker, Carol; Dunagan, Stephen; Stevens, Todd; Amils, Ricardo; Gomez-Elvira, Javier; Fernandez, David; Hall, James; Lynch, Kennda; Cannon, Howard;Zavaleta, Jhony. (2004-01-01). "Mars Analog Rio Tinto Experiment (MARTE): 2003 Drilling Campaign to Search for a Subsurface Biosphere at Rio Tinto Spain". Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV: Astrobiology: Analogs and Applications to the Search for Life. Lynch, Kennda L.; Horgan, Briony H.; Munakata‐Marr, Junko; Hanley, Jennifer; Schneider, Robin J.; Rey, Kevin A.; Spear, John R.; Jackson, W. Andrew; Ritter, Scott M. (2015). "Near-infrared spectroscopy of lacustrine sediments in the Great Salt Lake Desert: An analog study for Martian paleolake basins". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 120 (3): 599–623. doi:10.1002/2014JE004707

Education, outreach, and equity K. LYNCH, P. LEIBER, M. PEDERSEN, M. TULI, T. LONGAZO, L. MILLER, S. PALMER, M. ZHANG. (2002). SETI and Astrobiology: Contact-A Youth Perspective. IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 366. Rathbun, J., E. Rivera-Valentin, J. Keane, C. Richey, K. Lynch, S. Diniega, L. Quick, and J. Vertesi. (2020). "Who is Missing in Planetary Science?: Recommendations to increase the number of Black and Latinx scientists." In AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts, vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 502–15. Rivera-Valentín, E. G., Rathbun, J., Keane, J. T., Lynch, K., Richey, C., Diniega, S., & Vertesi, J. (2020). Who is missing in planetary science?: A demographic study of the planetary science workforce. White paper. Diniega, S., Brooks, S., Gilmore, M., Lynch, K., Núñez, J., Quick, L.... & Rathbun, J. (2020, October). Recognizing our colleagues of color in Planetary Science. In AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 52, No. 6, pp. 502–06). Lynch, K. L., Diniega, S., Quick, L. C., Horst, S. M., Rivera-Valentin, E. G., & Rathbun, J. A. (2019, March). 50 Years of Planetary Science Workforce: Hidden Figures and the Legacy of Apollo. In Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (No. 2132, p. 3162). Diniega S., Castillo-Rogez J., Daubar I., Filiberto J., Goudge T., Lynch K., Rutledge A., Rathbun J., Scully J., Smith R., Richey C., Udovicic C.T., and Villarreal M. (2020) Ensuring a safe and equitable workspace: The importance and feasibility of a Code of Conduct, along with clear policies regarding authorship and team membership. White Paper . LPI Contribution Number: LPI-002544. K. Lynch “WALLE: Saving the Earth, Forecasting the Future” (Feature Story). NSBE Bridge Magazine. Summer 2008 Issue. K. Lynch “Learning Life on Mars”. Magazine of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). March/April, 2007. Vol. 18. #4:57-59.

Other media Lynch is a featured expert in three television episodes about life on other planets:

Explained: Extraterrestrial Life (2018) Glad You Asked: Will We Survive Mars? (2019) Alien Worlds: Janus (2020)