New Astrobiology Director

Australian paleontologist Bruce Runnegar has been selected as the next director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute (NAI), succeeding Nobel laureate Baruch S. Blumberg. For the past four years, Runnegar has been the director of the Center for Astrobiology in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA. Established in 1998, the NAI is a virtual organization comprising NASA field centers, universities, and research organizations that collaborate to study the nature of life in the universe. When he takes over the directorship in January, Runnegar will lead the NAI’s effort to answer three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere? What is life’s future on Earth and beyond? “The answers to these questions will not come quickly,” Runnegar said. “That’s why NASA needs to attract bright young people to the field of astrobiology.” Runnegar received his PhD from the University of Queensland in Australia and became a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1987. Blumberg, the NAI director since 1999, announced last year that he would step down at the end of 2002. Blumberg won a Nobel Prize in 1976 for his work on the hepatitis B vaccine.