The Summons Lab bids farewell to a talented lab member and welcomes several new members

Dr. Xiaolei Liu has been a postdoctoral associate and a research scientist in Roger’s lab for the last 3 years. Xiaolei received his PhD degree at the University of Bremen with Dr. Kai-Uwe Hinrichs. Afterwards, he continued in the same lab before joining the Summons Lab in 2014. Xiaolei has contributed significantly to this lab and has helped manage the lab since 2016. Xiaolei recently accepted the offer from the University of Oklahoma (OU) to be a tenure-track professor. http://www.ou.edu/mcee/geology/people/faculty/xiaolei_liu.html. The Summons Lab wishes him all the best with his new career.

Dr. Xiaowen Zhang received her PhD in 2017. She pioneered the use of compound specific radiocarbon analysis in tracking permafrost thawing in the past.  She also worked on permafrost thawing in Arctic Alaska and the associated climatic feedbacks. After completing her PhD, she joined the Summons Lab. For her postdoctoral research, she will primarily focus on the abiotic synthesis of lipids. Her research could potentially answer how the earliest lipids were synthesized on Earth.

Angel Mojarro is a new PhD student, co-advised by Roger Summons and Maria Zuber. His research is focused on human exploration and the search for life of Mars. In Summons Lab, he will analyze organic molecules from rock/soil samples and extract information about life from them.