UA Undergraduate Researcher, Ocean Valdez, Awarded Astrobiology Seed Grant
Ocean Valdez, an undergraduate astronomy student at the University of Arizona, has been selected as a recipient of an Arizona Astrobiology Center (AABC) Seed Grant to support research on exoplanet atmospheres.
Ocean is a sophomore by credit and a second bachelor’s student majoring in Astronomy, with minors in Physics and Astrobiology, and plans to graduate in Fall 2028. After graduation, Ocean hopes to pursue a PhD focused on astrobiology, planetary oceanography, and planetary/exoplanetary habitability research.
Ocean’s seed grant research “Identifying Hidden Background Gases in Temperate Terrestrial Exoplanet Atmospheres Through Collision-Induced Absorption” focuses on whether collision-induced absorption can help reveal background gases in temperate terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres. Some important gases for habitability, like nitrogen, are hard to detect directly because they do not produce strong spectral features on their own. By comparing CIA signals from different gas pairings under realistic exoplanet conditions, I’ll be testing whether these faint features can help identify atmospheric composition and pressure on potentially habitable worlds.
The project is being conducted under the guidance of Dr. Ty Robinson, Associate Professor and Interim Director of the Arizona Astrobiology Center.
This year, 10 Astrobiology Seed Grants were awarded, each providing up to $10,000 in funding. According to the Arizona Astrobiology Center, "The AABC Seed Grant program is an opportunity to foster creative, ambitious, and interdisciplinary scholarship and engagement in the expansive field of astrobiology. This initiative includes biological, physical, and space science projects as well as projects in the humanities, social sciences, arts, science education, and other fields."
Congratulations to Ocean on this outstanding achievement!