I am Yasaman Azizpour, a Ph.D. student in Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, where I study microbial life in extreme environments and its implications for life beyond Earth. My research bridges biochemistry, geomicrobiology, and astrobiology, with a particular focus on sulfur metabolism and enzymatic adaptations in energy-limited ecosystems.

I began my scientific career with an MSc in Biochemistry at Tarbiat Modares University, Iran (2019), where my thesis explored enzyme production in extremophiles from the Lut Desert, one of the hottest and saltiest places on Earth. By isolating and characterizing a thermostable amylase from Bacillus strains, I gained early experience in extremophile biology, protein purification, and microbial survival strategies under extreme heat, salinity, and desiccation. This work deepened my fascination with microbial resilience and introduced me to the parallels between Earth’s harshest environments and extraterrestrial settings.

For my doctoral work, I joined Dr. D’Arcy Meyer-Dombard’s lab at UIC, where I study sulfate-reducing microorganisms (SRM) in Yellowstone hydrothermal systems as analogs for potential life in icy ocean worlds such as Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. My research combines field expeditions to Yellowstone, geochemical analyses, metagenomics, and enzymology to link microbial metabolism with environmental chemistry. In the lab, I extract and study key enzymes in the sulfate reduction pathway, particularly dissimilatory sulfite reductase (DsrAB and its partner DsrC), and test their stability and activity under high-pressure conditions analogous to Europa’s subsurface ocean (~200 MPa). This work provides critical insight into how life could survive in dark, pressurized, energy-limited environments beneath Europa’s icy crust.

Building on this, I also investigate serpentinization systems, another class of extreme environments where water–rock reactions generate hydrogen- and methane-rich fluids. These ecosystems not only sustain unique microbial communities on Earth but also serve as powerful analogs for subsurface oceans on icy moons. By analyzing metagenomic datasets and correlating microbial diversity with fluid chemistry and thermodynamic models, I aim to understand how SRM and other microbes adapt to such ultrabasic, energy-limited conditions.

Through collaborations with PIs at other universities and with NASA’s astrobiology teams, my long-term goal is to advance the search for biosignatures and microbial habitability in ocean worlds.

I am open to discussions with colleagues who share an interest in my research and look forward to potential collaborations.