By Victor Dixon, Editor-in-Chief
Does alien life look how you expected?
A Newman professor who got some of her training at NASA is doing research in astrobiology, investigating the possibility of life on other planets such as Mars, which, if discovered, will be something similar to bacteria, she said.
Dr. Tomoko Bell is a biology professor who has taught at Newman since 2022, and from January through March of this year, she had the chance to work with NASA at its Biosignature Ideation Lab in Colorado where researchers discussed methods for discovering alien life.
She said that from a young age, she was fascinated by all life and was particularly inspired by NASA’s space missions.
“It’s a collaboration among mathematicians, chemists, biologists, physicists, engineers,” she said. “It’s basically all of the knowledge from all kinds of disciplines. I think it’s so cool to see one single space mission that every type of brain is working together to accomplish something super big.”
After finishing her doctoral degree in Earth Science at the University of Tokyo, Bell was selected for a NASA internship in 2021, during which she met other researchers, and her passion for finding life on other planets grew.
Then she got the chance to apply for participation in NASA’s Ideation Lab, which selected 30 professors and researchers from across the country to discuss the question of exploring outer space for alien life and how that research would be conducted.
“When we talk about a topic like this we say, ‘life as we know it’ and ‘life as we do not know it’… So we are basically looking for something we don’t know,” she said.
Dr. Bell’s research into life focuses not only on organisms similar to bacteria from other planets but also on bacteria that live in undiscovered caves on Earth. She also expressed interest in the possibility of life that doesn’t have DNA.
Dr. Bell says her passion is biology, and she wants to encourage students to find their own passion. She even invites them to spend time sitting in on the classes she teaches at Newman.
“It’s really important to nail down your passion because I feel like my job is not really a job, it’s more like my hobby. So every day I feel like I’m doing my hobby,” she said. “I really want my students to find their passion because that will be a big part of your life.”
PHOTO: Courtesy, Tomoko Bell
