Carol Stoker

Contact Information

Title:

Phone:

(650)604-6490

Email :

Carol.R.Stoker@nasa.gov

Affiliation:

SST

Affiliation:

Planetary Systems Branch (Code SST)

Professional Background

Professional Biography:

Carol Stoker is a staff planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Carol has a broad range of interests and skills. Most recent work is focused on developing instruments and robotic systems for space exploration and testing them in terrestrial analog environments. She has led field experiments in the Antarctic, arctic, undersea, and deserts in the southwestern US to demonstrate robotic systems to search for life on other planets. Her projects have won six NASA group achievement awards and she has over 100 publications. She is actively involved in the robotic exploration of Mars and in planning for future human exploration. She is currently a coinvestigator on the Mars Phoenix mission that recently performed sampling near the north pole of Mars to search for habitable environments for life. She also currently leads activities to develop and test drilling systems to access the Martian subsurface to search for evidence of life.

Bio:

Carol Stoker is a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. She recieved her

Education:

B.S. 1976, Physics (Cum Laude), University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Ph.D. 1983, Dept. of Astrogeophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder

Research Interests:

• Life in extreme environments as analogs for extraterrestrial life, most recent work has focused on subsurface life.
• Developing the science rational, methodology, and technology to search for extraterrestrial life.
• Lead for numerous field experiments in extreme space analog environments involving interdisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists.
• Virtual Reality information systems for remote robot operations and data analysis.
• Scientific, engineering, and operations aspects of human planetary exploration.

Select Publications:

Stoker, C.R. and 12 others. The habitability of the Phoenix landing site, J. Geophys. Res. in press for special issue on Phoenix Mission results, 2009je003421.

Stoker, C.R.and 28 others, The 2005 MARTE robotic drilling experiment in Rio Tinto, Spain: Objectives, approach, and results of a simulated mission to search for life in the Martian subsurface. Astrobiology, 8, 5, 2008.

Fernández-Remolar , D., O. Prieto-Ballesteros, N. Rodríguez, F. Gómez, R. Amils, J. Gómez-Elvira, T. Stevens, and C. Stoker, Underground habitats found in the Río Tinto Basin: an approach to Mars subsurface life exploration, Astrobiology, Vol. 8 No. 5 DOI:10.1089/ast.2007.0217, 2008.

Bonaccorsi, R. and C. Stoker, Ground truth of drilling results from core logging and returned samples and comparison with the remote science results, Astrobiology, Vol. 8 No. 5 DOI:10.1089/ast.2007.0217, 2008.

Parro, V., P. Fernández-Calvo, J. A. Rodríguez Manfredi, M. Moreno-Paz, L. A. Rivas, M. García-Villadangos, R. Bonaccorsi, J. E. González-Pastor, O. Prieto-Ballesteros, A. C. Schuerger, M. Davidson, J. Gómez-Elvira, and C. Stoker, SOLID2: An antibody array-based life detector instrument in a Mars Drilling Simulation Experiment (MARTE). Astrobiology, Vol. 8 No. 5 DOI:10.1089/ast.2007.0217, 2008.

Cannon, H., C. R. Stoker, and 15 others, MARTE: Technology development and lessons learned from a Mars drilling mission simulation. Journal of Field Robotics, 24, 10, Pages 877-905, 2007.

Stoker, C.R., T. Roush, R. Arvisdon, J. Bresina et al. Two dogs, new tricks: field trials with FIDO and K9 rovers at Blackrock summit, Nevada, May 2000, J.Geophys. Res. 107, E11, 8009, 2002.

Stoker, C.R., N. Cabrol, T. Roush, J. Moersch et al. The 1999 Marsokhod rover mission simulation at Silver Lake California: Mission overview, data sets, and summary of results J. Geophys. Res. 106, 7639-7663, 2001.

Stoker, C., The search for life on Mars, the role of rovers, J. Geophys. Res.,103, 28557-28575, 1998.

Stoker, C. and M. Bullock, Organic degradation under simulated Martian conditions, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 10881-10888, 1997.

Stoker, C. and C. Emmart (eds.) Strategies for Mars: A Guide to Human Exploration, AAS Sci. Tech. Ser., 86, 619 pg., 1996.

Curriculum Vita: