Nils-Kåre Birkeland is working at the Norwegian Centre of Excellence for Geobiology located at the University of Bergen. He has a broad interest in molecular microbiology and microbial physiology/biotechnology.His main research area are thermophiles growing at temperatures up to 100oC. To learn more abouthis research, view his homepage
Cecilia Ceccarelli Cecilia Ceccarrelli is astronomer at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique at the Observatoire de Grenoble.She is mainly working in the field of star formation, formation of protoplanetary disks and moleculardeuteration in the Universe.In 2006 she was awarded the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize as Woman in Science of the Year in France. To find out more about Cecilia Cecarelli’s research click here.
David Fisher David Fisher is Researcher and head of the glaciology department at Natural Resources Canada at Natural Resources, Canada. His work focuses on determining the history of the climate using Ice drill cores. He is also involved in the Phoenix mission. Herein he applies his glaciation and chemical fingerprinting expertise to determining the history of water on Mars. With years of experience in Canada's Arctic, Fisher hopes to compare his field results them with the Martian climate history models that will be developed from the Phoenix mission.
Einar H. Guðmundsson Einar Guðmundsson’s research at the University of Iceland concentrates on neutron stars and their envelopes, gravitational collapse and, more generally, the evolution of theUniverse. He is also working on the history of science in Iceland. You can access his personal homepage here.
Paul Helfenstein
Paul Helfenstein is Senior Researcher at Cornell University, USA. He is involved in the Cassini-Huygens mission. His work also incliudes studies of the effects of photo-metric geometry on spectral reflectance measurements, optical properties and mechanical structure of geological materials on asteroids. His homepage can be found here.
Guðmundur O. Hreggviðsson Guðmundur Hreggviðsson is leading the Prokaria biotechnology company operated by the Matis IcelandicFood Research Company. Prokaria has the sole right to perform research into hot spring extremophiles inIceland.
Karen J. Meech Karen Meech is astronomer at the University of Hawai’iand is specialized in planetary astronomy, in particularthe study of distant comets and their relation to the earlysolar system. She was also co-investigator on the 8th NASA Discovery mission, Deep Impact which willlaunch in 2004 and arrive at comet P/Tempel 1 in 2005.She is one of the co-organisers of this summer school,For more information check her homepage.
Laila J. Reigstad
"Laila J. Reigstad is a postdoctoral scientist at the Centreof Excellence for Geobiology based at the University of Bergen. Her
work is focussing on what Archaea are capable of doing under the harsh
conditions of terrestrial hot springs. With the use of molecular
methods (metagenomics) large parts of the archaeal genomes present in
the hot springs are recovered and through bioinformatics approaches
the gene content of these genomes pieces is analysed, thereby
revealing what functions the organism can carry out. In-field
experiments and sampling of hot spring material have been carried out
for 3 years at the Hveragerdi region of Iceland. Comparative studies
are carried out on terrestrial hot springs of Kamchatka, Far East
Russia."
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Ida Helene Steen Ida Helene Steen is working at the new Norwegian Centreof Excellence for Geobiology based at the Universityof Bergen. Her research interests include biochemicalcharacterisation and investigations into thermal stabilityof enzymes. You can find out more about her researchinterests here.
Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson is a glacioliogist working at the Icalandic EnergyAuthority. He is also teaching part-time at the University of Iceland. In 2004 he organised the Bioastronomy Conference in Iceland in 2004. One of his interests are investigations into subglacial lakes in Iceland.
Wolf D. Geppert Wolf D. Geppert is Senior Researcher at the PhysicsDepartment at Stockholm University. His mainresearch efforts focus on experimental investigationsof formation processes of biomolecule precursors ininterstellar clouds and planetary ionospheres. He isalso Director of Studies of the Graduate School ofAstrobiology at Stockholm University, coordinator of the Nordic Network of Astrobiology Graduate Schools and one of the co-organisers of this summer school.