Andrew Steele uses traditional and biotechnology approaches for the detection of microbial life in an astrobiology and solar system exploration.

He has been a staff member at the Geophysical Laboratory since 2001. A microbiologist by training and Astrobiologist by choice, his principle interest is in developing protocols, instrumentation and procedures for life detection in samples from the early earth and elsewhere in the solar system. His interest in this work began when working with Dave McKay of NASA Johnson Space Centre, after the release of his paper on the potential for life in the Mars meteorite ALH84001. In the years since, he has developed several instrument concepts for future Mars missions, has become involved in the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission as a member of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) team, is part of developing life marker chip technology, a technique he pioneered, for the European ExoMars mission. He is currently involved in a team (including NASA LOCAD and Charles River Laboratories) that is working with the first microbial rapid detection device to be flown in space aboard the international space station.

Andrew's work with the Mars program (and MEPAG) has led him to be a member of several committees that have redefined NASA’s goals document for life detection on Mars. He has also been a part of several science steering groups, chairing one the Astrobiology Field Laboratory that is NASA first concept for a Rover mission to detect life on Mars. He is a member of the NASA advisory committees planetary protection sub group and the National Science Foundations Committee on the Origin and Evolution of Life.

For the last 5 years he has journeyed to the arctic every summer to test instruments on board the Arctic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE), on which he is the science leader and principle investigator of a NASA Astrobiology technology grant. He is an active member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

His work with high resolution confocal Raman imaging has led to exciting discoveries in planetary science including being involved in NASA Stardust sample return, the discovery of new forms of carbon in meteorites and the discovery of a previously uncharacterized abiotic synthesis mechanism acting within the earths mantle and on Mars.

When he's not being a scientist, he is husband to a beautiful and talented wife (he is not quite sure how this happened) and father to two gorgeous little girls (he thinks he knows how this happened). He is an active musician and composer and considers himself a star within his own recording studio and no further. He also has a terrible sense of humor.