Supervisor : Dr Ian Hutchinson (ibh1@le.ac.uk)

Details of Project

This project is related to the use of portable instrumentation for field studies (pertinent to the ExoMars mission and possible future lunar lander missions). The research will involve; an investigation of the instrumentation challenges associated with planetary exploration, the development of portable instruments appropriate for use in the field and the study of analytical data from field instrumentation (the study will make use of specially synthesised laboratory mixtures relevant to astrobiological and geological studies and natural samples obtained from terrestrially extreme environments). This work will be performed in collaboration with a number of international partners and is likely to involve travel to a number of different field sites.

Atacama Desert

The student will have the opportunity to work as part of an interdisciplinary team involving; physicists, chemists, spectroscopists, geologists, biochemists, instrumentation scientists and engineers. Members of the team include Prof Howell Edwards, Bradford University; Prof Jan Jehlicka, Charles University in Prague and Dr Richard Ingley, University of Leicester.