Dr. Margaret (Maggie) Turnbull, Ph.D is an astrobiologist whose expertise is in identifying planetary systems that are capable of supporting life as we know it. One of her ongoing passions is in understanding our nearest neighboring stars in detail, especially with regard to whether these stars might have habitable planets orbiting them, and what kind of technology it would take to discover and explore them. She developed a Catalog of Habitable Stellar Systems for use in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and she has studied the spectrum of the Earth to identify the telltale signatures of a living planet. She is currently leading the science team for NASA’s WFIRST mission, slated for launch in 2025, and in 2019 she was appointed to NASA’s Starshade Technology Working Group. WFIRST will be the first mission to take pictures of planetary systems orbiting the nearest sunlike stars, and the first mission with the hope of determining the atmospheric composition and surface characteristics of those planets.
Astrobiology is a field of science that combines Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology to explore the possibility of life throughout the universe and ask, “Are We Alone?" Maggie received her Bachelor of Science degree in Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in Astronomy and Cell Biology. When not thinking about alien worlds and missions to get us there, Maggie can be found keeping honey bees, raising monarchs, tapping sugar maples, canoeing, and cross country skiing across the north woods with a beautiful community of fellow outdoor-loving women, men, children, and dogs