Amy J. Williams

Assistant Professor University of Florida

Gainesville FL

Amy J. Williams is searching for habitable environments and microbial life on Mars and outer world moons.

Contact

University of Florida
View more experts managed by University of Florida

View all Experts

Biography

Amy J. Williams is an assistant professor of geology in the Department of Geological Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Amy has been a member of the NASA Curiosity rover science team since 2009 and currently works with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument team to explore the distribution of organic molecules on Mars’ surface. She also is on the NASA Perseverance rover science team as a Participating Scientist. Her research focuses on the interaction between microbial life, the geochemical environment and the rock record on Earth, and how to recognize habitable environments and potentially preserved microbial life on Mars and the outer world moons.

Areas of Expertise

Space

Persverance Rover

NASA Mars Missions

Mars Missions

Mars

Microbial Life on Mars

Habitable Environments on Mars

Curiosity Rover

Organic Molecules on Mars

Media Appearances

Below Mars' surface, life could endure for a shocking amount of time

Mashable online

2022-10-29

Even the toughest microbe couldn't survive for long on Mars' tortured desert ground. Deadly radiation from the cosmos pummels the surface. The temperature averages minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. In the profoundly dry, sparse atmosphere, a cup of water would immediately vaporize.

Curiosity’s decade of discovery on Mars

NPR WMFE online

2022-08-16

A robotic explorer on Mars is celebrating 10 years on the red planet. NASA’s Curiosity rover launched from Cape Canaveral in 2011 and landed on Mars in August 2012. Its mission is to explore the geology of Mars and determine if the planet ever contained conditions favorable to life in a region called Gale Crater. Despite a decade on the planet — there’s no sign of the robot slowing down.

NASA's Mars Life Explorer mission would dig deep to hunt for Red Planet life

Space online

2022-07-11

Has life ever existed on Mars? Could it still exist there today? These questions intrigue scientists and the public alike. And digging into them could require exactly that — going underground on Mars.

Show All +

Social

Articles

Choosing the Right Tools for the Job: Life-Detection Payloads for Mars

Astrobiology Science Conference

Amy J. Williams, et al.

2022-05-20

With the exploration by the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and upcoming Mars Sample Return, we are developing a more nuanced understanding of Mars and its environmental history. These data can inform the search for life on Mars in several ways. Lessons learned from the instrument suites on these missions can inform next generation life-detection instruments that overcome Mars-specific environmental challenges (oxidation, radiation, deep-time diagenesis).

Organic molecules revealed in Mars’s Bagnold Dunes by Curiosity’s derivatization experiment

Nature Astronomy

M. Millian, et al.

2021-11-01

The wet chemistry experiments on the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument on NASA’s Curiosity rover were designed to facilitate gas chromatography mass spectrometry analyses of polar molecules such as amino acids and carboxylic acids. Here we present the results of such a successful wet chemistry experiment on Mars on sand scooped from the Bagnold Dunes with the N-methyl-N-(tert-butyldimethylsilyl) trifluoroacetamide derivatization agent. No amino-acid derivatives were detected. However, chemically derivatized benzoic acid and ammonia were detected.

Perseverance rover reveals an ancient delta-lake system and flood deposits at Jezero crater, Mars

Science

N. Mangold, et al.

2021-10-07

Observations from orbital spacecraft have shown that Jezero crater on Mars contains a prominent fan-shaped body of sedimentary rock deposited at its western margin. The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater in February 2021. We analyze images taken by the rover in the 3 months after landing.

Media

Spotlight

May 9, 2023

2 min

UF astrobiologist partakes in her second NASA mission to Mars

By Halle Burton NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover mission is no easy task, yet its distinguished team has discovered signs of organic molecules, containing chemicals known for making life possible on Earth. One of these long-term planners is University of Florida astrobiologist, Amy Williams. “Organics make up life as we know it,” Williams said. “Seeing organic carbon on Mars sets us up to understand if the building blocks for life were present on the planet in the past through the lens of how life evolved on Earth.” Williams and the Perseverance team were published in November’s Science magazine for their organic molecules analysis, after finding numerous organic carbons on the Jerezo crater floor. Through NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Perseverance is studying the crater with collected rock samples planned to be sent to Earth during the Mars Sample Return mission. Upon further research and testing on Earth, these rocks could determine compelling evidence of past life on Mars. Several of the rock samples indicate altercations by water, making scientists propose that a water-infused Mars could have supported ancient life. The Jerezo crater itself serves as an intriguing site to study past life on the terrestrial planet. The creation of the crater implies Mars contained a primitive river streaming into a lake billions of years ago. Now, Williams is no stranger to working with the detection of organic molecules on Mars. In 2015, she worked with the Curiosity rover which also found organic carbon on the inner planet. With her work diversified on the Perseverance team, evidence is closer than ever to proving the omnipresence of organic carbon on Mars. “Seeing a consistent story is always reassuring as a scientist,” Williams said.

May 9, 2023

3 min

Meet the astrobiologist and her students who are searching for life on Mars

By Emma Richards, University of Florida From a young age, Amy Williams wondered if life existed beyond Earth amidst the dark abyss of space, stars and planets — a curiosity that years later landed her a career researching and exploring Mars. Williams, an assistant professor of geology and an astrobiologist at the University of Florida, works as a participating scientist on the Perseverance and Curiosity Rover Science Teams and previously served as a postdoctoral research associate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. As an astrobiologist and geobiologist, she uses techniques from geology, microbiology and chemistry to search for life beyond Earth. “Even as a little kid watching meteor showers with my family, I wondered if there was someone out there in the stars looking back at Earth.” “Even as a little kid watching meteor showers with my family, I wondered if there was someone out there in the stars looking back at Earth,” she said in an episode of the From Florida podcast. “It’s been a passion of mine my whole career and now it’s the most amazing opportunity to serve on both of the active Mars rover missions.” Williams’ journey to Mars began as a graduate student when a research professor gave her the opportunity to work on the NASA Curiosity mission. From there, Williams built her way up and is now a participating scientist working on day-to-day rover operations. Williams also is opening doors for graduate students at UF to work on Mars research, helping upcoming generation of scientists follow her path. She is specifically interested in involving women and underrepresented groups in her work. Based on her research, Williams said life on Mars, if found, will likely look less like Marvin the Martian and more like microbial life similar to bacteria on Earth. Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 and Perseverance landed in 2021. The rovers are searching for potential life on Mars by going to habitable environments and searching for evidence of water and essential elements that could supported such life forms. Curiosity has spent nearly its entire mission exploring a large five-kilometer-tall mountain in Gale Crater known as Mount Sharp. The scientists can see Mars’ history and climate based on changes in the chemistry and sediments of the mountain. As for Perseverance, the rover is exploring Jezero Crater, with emphasis on its delta, a geologic deposit that is formed when water from a river flows into a lake. Perseverance will help collect rock and sediment samples from Mars that will be the first brought back to Earth. NASA is also working on a program to eventually send humans to Mars, which will likely take many decades; the first stage in the project will be returning humans to the Moon. “But in the meanwhile, these robots, these rovers that we send to the red planet, they are our proxy,” Williams said. “And looking through the robot rover’s eyes, the images that are returned to us, I recognize this is the closest I will ever be to standing on Mars and looking up at these beautiful geological units, looking up at an alien world that’s so familiar because the tenets of geology apply on Mars, the same as they do on Earth.” To hear more about the Amy Williams' Mars research, listen to the episode on From Florida at this link. Listen to other episodes in the "From Florida" series at this link. To learn more about her work, watch this video featuring Professor Williams:

Amy J. Williams

University of Florida