Where are you from?
I was born in a region of Spain called Catalonia, in a small industrial town of about ninety thousand people, named Manresa, not far from Barcelona. During my childhood, I lived in an apartment there with my parents and my brother, in a neighborhood of working-class people, many of them from different parts of the country. I went to the same school up until it was time to go to college. It was a nice microcosm in which to grow up. I could see the school from my bedroom, so pretty much since 1st grade, I would walk to school with my brother or some of the kids I grew up with. Everyone knew everyone so it was a great place to spend my childhood.
What got you into science?
It probably was a combination of things. There are things you get from doing science you cannot get in most other professions. There is also the fact that I was not interested in a “normal” job… I have this very early memory—I must have been 3 or 4 years old—and I remember seeing this map of Spain in my parents’ house (could have been in school). Anyway, I remember looking at this and thinking ‘wow! There is a lot of world out there, the world is a big place!’, Later I realized, with a sense of wonder, that it was just one of many countries, and only a tiny portion of the world, and I also realized how naïve I actually was.
And I remember specifics during middle school, especially a good science teacher that made a very strong impact. I recall this one particular experiment where we had to extract DNA from a banana. The goal was to visualize DNA under the microscope, and I happened by chance to do a textbook DNA extraction that the teacher was very proud to show to the rest of the class, and I thought ‘that’s cool!’ I guess it was a number of experiences like that, which gradually made me want to do science.
Then right about high school, I knew I wanted to do science, and by the time I was getting ready to go to college I had narrowed my choices down to biology, or biology related stuff. I was also looking for a place that was away from home, not for anything in particular, but I felt it would be a good idea to get out of the old neighborhood and explore other places. So I actually found this college offering a degree on marine sciences that filled all my requirements: it was biology related, it was new, oceanography, and it was on the other side of the country.
At some point that interest in science became oriented toward space?
I never had an inkling toward space science or astrobiology. When I finished college, I knew I wanted to keep doing science and I wanted to go to grad school. My original plan was to stay in marine sciences and marine geology. I got an undergraduate degree in marine sciences and a masters in marine physics and geology. But then the person who was going to be my Ph.D. advisor was contacted by somebody from Germany, who said “I’m looking for a grad student to work on this project. I have the funding, I just need the student and I trust you will pick the right person”.
At that time, we were two candidate students and we both got offered the chance of going to Germany. The other student didn’t want to go because of personal reasons. I had previously tried to go to Germany through an undergrad exchange program for a year, and I made it to the final selection but another student got to go in the end. So this time around I thought maybe this is a second chance. I knew I wanted to do science, it was a good opportunity and it was in Germany. The subject was interesting to me: it was to study the way animals use the magnetic field of the Earth to navigate and orient themselves. It had nothing to do with anything I had studied but it sounded pretty cool. I said, “Can I think about it?” I was given 24 hours (for some reason they were in a hurry) and I was in Germany within a few months to start a Ph.D.
That turned out to be a great experience. I worked on this subject with homing pigeons and insects. It was a very interesting combination of biology and geophysics. Finally, towards the end of my Ph.D., my advisor came to the office one day and said: “I got this phone call from somebody at NASA and they want to talk to us about magnetotactic bacteria” (a type of microbe we were studying that synthesize magnetic crystals inside their cells). I got on the phone and it was Chris McKay from NASA Ames and another person named Imre Friedmann. They were looking for people with experience finding tiny magnetic crystals made by the magnetotactic bacteria in lake sediments. The reason they were interested in those tiny crystals is that in 1996, when the Allan Hills meteorite made a splash in the news, one of the evidence of life that the authors claimed to have found in the meteorite were tiny crystals of magnetic particles similar to those made by magnetotactic bacteria. Chris and Imre wanted to see if we could find the same kind of crystals in lake sediments on Earth and compare them to the crystals in the meteorite. They contacted our group and said, “we need somebody to come to Ames for two weeks to figure this thing out”. I was the only student in our group at the time and my advisor suggested I should go. It sounded like fun, I had never been in the U.S., and it was NASA… I might have overemphasized my expertise in the matter a little, but I came to NASA Ames for a couple of weeks.
That was in 2005! I came here to Ames and met Chris and Imre, who by then was retired but was also working in the Space Science Division. As soon as I landed we got in a van and we took this crazy trip through the Mojave Desert and to Mono Lake. We visited a bunch of places collecting lake sediments for 3 or 4 days and then I was supposed to figure all this thing out in the next 10 days or so working with a microscope in the basement in Bldg. 245 (laughs). Obviously, it wasn’t enough time, and one day talking to Imre he suggested I should apply for a NASA postdoc to continue with the project. Chris could be my advisor, and Imre would be a co-advisor. I was facing the cliff in 3 months after I was done with my Ph.D., so I wrote the proposal with the help of Chris and Imre and it got selected for an NPP. That was the first time I had heard of astrobiology, so my interest in the field came fairly late in my career. Then I came here and that’s where I am now. A lot of things have happened between then and now but that was my introduction to space sciences and astrobiology.
You’ve mentioned one of them, but what are some other interesting things you have been working on and what are you currently working on?
That project was interesting but it turned out to be a big challenge. During the first year of my postdoc, Imre passed away. He was a big catalyzer for the project, and him not being around anymore prompted me to move on and try other projects.
Chris McKay gave me the flexibility to work on whatever I wanted to, and by chance, I met another researcher (Jacek Wierzchos) who was also working with Chris and Imre and who had just discovered these very interesting microbial communities in the Atacama Desert in Chile, another exotic place I’d never been to. Jacek offered me the opportunity to join him in his next expedition and help him with the project. So I went to Chile and that became my career for the next, well up until now. That was kind of a turning point.
I forgot about the magnetotactic bacteria and the magnetic crystals and I started working on these creatures in the Atacama. Largely because of my deep knowledge of Spanish (laughs) Chris thought I could be a good person to continue the Ames involvement in Chile that had been going on for more than 10 years, and I started going to the Atacama every year. Every time somebody wanted to go and contacted us, I would go with them and help out, so I developed a skill and a knowledge about the place. I slowly started getting involved in many other projects in the Atacama, and in some other deserts, and eventually, I also started doing fieldwork in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, so that became the focus of my research: studying microbial communities surviving in extremely dry environments.
For the benefit of those who may come across this on our website who are not NASA people and who probably are helping to fund this work as taxpayers, how does the work you are doing support the NASA mission and basically humanity’s imperative to explore?
That particular aspect of my work is very tightly linked to Mars and the search for evidence of life on Mars. The Atacama, the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Namib… all of these very dry (and sometimes very cold) places, we use them as analogs of Mars. Throughout its history, Mars has undergone a big climate change from a relatively wet to a very dry environment (drier than any place on Earth). As we study places like the Atacama and Antarctica, and if we understand the principles of microbial survival in these extremely dry places, we might learn a thing or two about how life on Mars could have survived during that long period of climate change, perhaps even what might be the best places on the planet to search for evidence of life, and the types of life detection experiments we should do. It is a relatively inexpensive way of informing Mars exploration by studying terrestrial environments.
Is this related to the Second Genesis of Life?
That’s a different problem. The concept of a second genesis is also something I am very interested in. It is related to this notion that planets like Earth and Mars because of their closeness, have been exchanging rocks for billions of years. We have Martian meteorites on Earth and there are very likely terrestrial rocks lying on Mars. There is a possibility that life might have been transferred between both planets at some point. Panspermia. This tells us that finding evidence of life on Mars by itself does not necessarily imply a second genesis. We might be close relatives that got transferred from Mars to Earth or from Earth to Mars. I am interested in finding ways to tell a second genesis from a common ancestor. That has driven me to spend quite a bit of time studying prebiotic chemistry and to try to tease out what we should be looking for in aliens to tell whether they are related to us or not.
That’s a fascinating aspect that I hadn’t considered when I read your bio, so thanks for clarifying that.
It turns out to be a very useful way to think about the search for life itself, whether it’s a second genesis or a common origin because it forces you to think of life in very fundamental terms.
What is a typical day like for you?
There are no typical days. I find that to be one of the things I like the most about this job. I do quite a fair amount of fieldwork, which typically can take from several weeks to a couple of months. Fieldwork brings a very different routine than when I am in the office at Ames. Here I spend time working on proposals, which can be science proposals or instrument proposals or mission proposals, each one is different. There are a fair amount of meetings, in person or over the phone. When I have a little bit of time I write papers about the second genesis and so on. I do quite a bit of reading (not as much as I would like) and writing. I don’t do much lab work. It’s a combination of a lot of reading, writing, meeting, talking on the phone, and then going away to places where I cannot meet or access a computer or a phone…
What do you like best and least about your job?
I can’t think of anything that I like the least. Obviously, paperwork is not the most rewarding activity. That is not what I trained for, but I do it and I don’t mind doing it.
What I like the most, is that since NASA is a mission-oriented agency, and missions are such huge endeavors, this work forces you to think holistically, both in terms of science and technology and management, cost, schedules… Missions have all those different moving parts, and I enjoy the challenge of helping develop mission concepts where all those moving parts need to click and work together. I also enjoy the global perspective that missions bring to the science I do. Plus, each mission is different. The challenge of putting together something as complex as a mission, that is probably the most exciting part of the job.
Do you have a favorite memory from your career so far, or perhaps an unexpected finding or something interesting?
There are lots of memories, many of them related to fieldwork. I have been very fortunate to visit places that few people get to visit, and that experience is quite rewarding.
In terms of findings, it’s all been so far a gradual process, nothing like a “Eureka” moment that changed everything. Hopefully, that happens at some point in the future, when we get a mission that finds something truly new out there—perhaps evidence of life on another planet!
I do remember one time when I was a Ph.D. student. My Ph.D. project was relatively simple; it mostly required a light microscope in a small room; that and some modeling is all I used. And I remember this one experiment; I was trying to figure out how homing pigeons can pick up the magnetic field of the Earth and use it as a cue to navigate when they travel. I was doing an experiment under the microscope, and without going too much into details, I remember it was late, 10 or 11 pm, I was probably one of the few people left in the institute that night, and the experiment responded in a very unexpected way. However, the response explained many of the observations that researchers had reported for many years, regarding the response of homing pigeons to magnetic fields. I remember the feeling of going to bed, being the only person who now understood those observations, and it was a very interesting and rewarding feeling; and at the same time a bit selfish… You can’t get used to it, being the only person who knows something. The next day my advisor was going to know about it, and there was a good chance that the new theory would turn out to be wrong anyway, but that moment of realization… that became a powerful memory that has probably motivated me to chase similar moments.
What is your dream job?
I’m living it! I guess the only thing that is missing to fulfill the dream is to get a mission off the ground, with the science, instrumentation, and ideas that we have been developing here at Ames for a number of years. That would be the icing on my professional cake.
What advice would you give a young person who is interested in having a career like yours?
Think very carefully about what it is that motivates you to do science. Very, very, carefully. If your motivation to do science drives you to work weekends to figure something out; or if that motivation drives you to spend nights in the lab until your experiment works; or if it drives you to faraway places and to be uncomfortable and cold and hungry until you get the samples you need; then you’re probably in the right business! If your main motivation is other, like money or recognition, probably you’re not in the right business, because those are very hard to come by in science. So think about your motivation, make the right decision, and the rest goes with it, I think.
Would you like to share anything about your family?
I don’t have a family of my own. My parents, my brother and all my extended family are in Spain. In fact, almost all of them now live in the same city, generations of them! It is a very Spanish thing to do. I’m the first person in my family that’s been living in another country for such a long period of time, in fact, I’m the only U.S. citizen in my family. I look forward to going back to Spain every now and then and spending time with all of them (and catching up on all the good food).
What do you do for fun? Any hobbies, trips, musical instruments, things that you enjoy doing?
I work! No, I like movies a lot, I spend a lot of time watching movies in the theater. I like spending time with friends. I like good food and very often I get together with friends and we spend a day cooking and eating. Because I travel so much for work when I have a chance to travel I actually go back to Spain or I visit friends that I haven’t seen in a while. Listening to music, watching sports on TV… but most of the time I work because it feels like a hobby, I actually enjoy it.
That’s a good way to feel about your work. What accomplishment are you most proud of that’s not science related?
That’s tough when all your life has been science! I’ve been in a number of situations that required a lot of physical and mental strength, very extended field work in extreme environments, doing very long hikes, I’ve gone days and sometimes weeks walking from one place to another, and realizing that I’ve been able to get through that and not only unscratched, but wanting more, that was quite interesting.
I remember the first time I did fieldwork. I was in Germany; it was during my Ph.D. It was not my project; somebody else needed an assistant to go to Northern Russia for 5-6 weeks. It was the first time I was in the field, so I had to learn how to build stuff for the camp; how to sample and all that. And it’s probably up until today, including several months in Antarctica, one of the most extreme field experiences I’ve been involved in. I remember coming back from that with the other person that I went with and we were recounting the experience to friends, showing them pictures. That other person had had a pretty horrendous time and was portraying this hellish picture of the whole experience. Something like the nine rings of hell. But I was just the opposite. I enjoyed every moment of it. I had been bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes; we were hungry and had to fish because we were running out of food; we paddled down a river for a week with no other humans in sight… and all that good stuff. To me, it was a great adventure.
It goes back to my comment about what to tell young people: if what you’re doing is your passion, then you can go through all that stuff and enjoy it. If I were in the science business for the wrong reasons, I would have probably turned back before that field trip was over. That was probably an important realization: I might actually be in the right business here if I can go through all these things and actually enjoy it…and come back for more!
Is there a particular figure, in your life, or perhaps historical, who inspires you?
I can’t think of a historical one, although I like reading about historical figures in science and politics. There’s no one person that is a perfect role model. Sometimes we tend to idolize other people, historical or modern figures, although we look at their lives through very narrow lenses. After some digging, you learn that they were far from perfect. That is normal; we are all humans after all. So rather than thinking of a particular person, I search for specific traits in different people, both historical and modern; friends and family, certain aspects of their character that I can relate to.
Do you have a favorite space or science related image?
A favorite quote:
A quote that I like for both science and life: There are no facts, only interpretations (Nietzsche).
Extra: Did you learn German?
I did… a bit. It took me a while and it was only good enough to survive. My German was never good enough to get me through a whole conversation. My advisor in Germany did encourage me to learn it. I think he valued my work in science as much as my willingness to grow as a person, and part of it was for me to embrace the German culture. He actually convinced a retired friend to teach a German class for foreign students at the institute, which became quite successful. I guess only some of that German stuck with me. But there was an important lesson there from my advisor; you are here to do science, but there is more to life than just that.
How did you carry that until now? That advice?
I don’t think it is something I have really tried to pass on to younger people. Perhaps I do when I get older and wiser… I do understand the value of it. I think what was more important to me was that he was not just interested in me doing my job, but on me growing as a person. As a student at the beginning of my career that was a positive thing to experience coming from a senior professor (he was close to retirement). Perhaps something I would not have experienced from a younger advisor. It kind of humanizes the job a bit, which is a good thing.
Interview conducted by Fred Van Wert and Sara Rojo on September 5th, 2018.