Peter Doran
Professor and John Franks Endowed Chair Louisiana State University
Areas of Expertise
Research Focus
Antarctic Climate Variability & Polar Desert Ecosystems
Dr. Doran’s research focuses on Antarctic climate and polar desert ecosystems—perennially ice‑covered lakes, hydrology, and long‑term ecological change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys—and on planetary‑protection policy for icy worlds. He combines decades of field campaigns and meteorological–limnological monitoring with remote sensing and modeling to decode climate variability and guide exploration and conservation.
Media Appearances
Professor leads project to develop cryobot for space exploration
LSU Reveille online
2016-03-17
The goal is for the cryobot, named SPINDLE, to reach an unexplored subglacial lake in Antarctica as a precursor to exploring icy moons, such as Jupiter’s moon Europa, Doran said.
LSU professor researches Antarctica’s extreme climate
LSU Reveille online
2019-01-08
“I tell my students all the time that working in that environment is like trying to go up an escalator that’s going down,” Doran said. “You have to put in that extra effort or else it will just push you back. You’re always fighting against the environment and the environment’s always fighting against you.”
NASA is bringing rocks back from Mars, but what if those samples contain alien life?
NPR radio
2022-05-04
"Maybe this is the most important environmental assessment that humans have ever done," says Peter Doran, a geologist at Louisiana State University who studies life in extreme environments.
What it’s really like to live on an Antarctic base: Meltdowns, claustrophobia and -40 degrees
New York Post online
2025-03-27
“There was also the time when a kitchen worker didn’t get his winter bonus,” Peter Doran, a Louisiana State University professor of geology and geophysics, who’s done field work at McMurdo Station, the primary American hub in Antarctica, told The Post.
Articles
Ice thickness regulates heat flux in permanently ice‐covered lakes
Limnology and Oceanography2025
The permanently ice‐covered lakes of Taylor Valley, Antarctica, are rare ecosystems where permanent ice cover and year‐round vertically stable water columns provide critical redox zones for cold‐adapted microorganisms. Using 30 yr of limnological data from the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long‐Term Ecological Research program, we assessed the water column heat flux of four permanently ice‐covered lakes in the context of global lake ice decline and lake warming. Our study reveals that heat flux in Taylor Valley lakes is driven by ice cover dynamics, both annual changes in ice thickness as well as overall ice thickness. During periods of ice thinning, like those observed from 2020 to 2023, the lakes accumulate heat.
Rethinking the Lake History of Taylor Valley, Antarctica During the Ross Sea I Glaciation
Geosciences2025
The Ross Sea I glaciation, marked by the northward advance of the Ross Ice Sheet (RIS) in the Ross Sea, east Antarctica, corresponds with the last major expansion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the last glacial period. During its advance, the RIS was grounded along the southern Victoria Land coast, completely blocking the mouths of several of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs). Several authors have proposed that very large paleolakes, proglacial to the RIS, existed in many of the MDVs. Studies of these large paleolakes have been key in the interpretation of the regional landscape, climate, hydrology, and glacier and ice sheet movements. By far the most studied of these large paleolakes is Glacial Lake Washburn (GLW) in Taylor Valley. Here, we present a comprehensive review of literature related to GLW, focusing on the waters supplying the paleolake, signatures of the paleolake itself, and signatures of past glacial movements that controlled the spatial extent of GLW.
Light cues drive community-wide transcriptional shifts in the hypersaline South Bay Salt Works
Communications Biology2025
The transition from day to night brings sweeping change to both environments and the organisms within them. Diel shifts in gene expression have been documented across all domains of life but remain understudied in microbial communities, particularly those in extreme environments where small changes may have rippling effects on resource availability. In hypersaline environments, many prominent taxa are photoheterotrophs that rely on organic carbon for growth but can also generate significant ATP via light-powered rhodopsins. Previous research demonstrated a significant response to light intensity shifts in the model halophile Halobacterium salinarum, but these cycles have rarely been explored in situ.
Dethiothermospora halolimnae gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel moderately halophilic, thermotolerant, bacterium isolated from a brine lake
International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology2025
A novel, strictly anaerobic, slightly alkaliphilic, halotolerant, peptide- and amino acid-utilizing bacterial strain, SD1T, was isolated from a hypersaline lake in Western Australia. The strain stained Gram-negative and was a motile, spore-forming rod. The strain grew between 15 and 50 °C (optimum 40 °C), 1–15% w/v sodium chloride (optimum 5%) and pH 6.0–10.0 (optimum 9.0). Major fatty acids included anteiso-C15 : 0 (24.9%), C14 : 0 dimethyl acetyl (13.2%), anteiso-C15 : 0 dimethyl acetyl (11.5%) and iso-C15 : 0 (10.4%). The DNA G+C content was 30.3 mol%. The isolate did not grow using any tested sugars but grew well on arginine and glycine.
The quest for habitats in the outer Solar System and how to protect exotic pristine environments
Acta Astronautica2025
The search for life within our Solar System and beyond has been a key motivation for space exploration since its inception. These efforts have focused on specific celestial bodies located within the "habitable zone". Mars has long been a primary target for exploration, but the large moons of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn have also emerged as fascinating astrobiological candidates, offering promising conditions for habitability and the potential for life to emerge and persist. To ensure safe and sustainable exploration of these bodies, the 114 countries that signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 assigned the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) the task of creating planetary protection guidelines. These
Affiliations
- Geological Society of America (GSA) : Fellow
- Earth Leadership Program (formerly Aldo Leopold Leadership Program) : Fellow
