Dr. Mary A. Voytek is a microbiologist with the United States Geological Survey

United States Geological Survey

The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...

 (USGS) in Reston, Virginia, and director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 (NASA) Astrobiology

Astrobiology

Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry,...

 Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Fields

Dr. Voytek's primary scientific interest is biogeochemistry

Biogeochemistry

Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment...

 and aquatic microbial ecology

Microbial ecology

Microbial ecology is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life — Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria — as well as viruses....

, in particular environmental controls on microbial transformations of nutrients, xenobiotic

Xenobiotic

A xenobiotic is a chemical which is found in an organism but which is not normally produced or expected to be present in it. It can also cover substances which are present in much higher concentrations than are usual...

s, and metals in freshwater and marine systems. Voytek has worked in several extreme environments including Antarctica, hypersaline lake

Hypersaline lake

A hypersaline lake is a landlocked body of water that contains significant concentrations of sodium chloride or other mineral salts, with saline levels surpassing that of ocean water . Specific microbial and crustacean species thrive in these high salinity environments that are otherwise...

s, deep-sea hydrothermal vent

Hydrothermal vent

A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in a planet's surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots. Hydrothermal vents exist because the earth is both...

s, and terrestrial deep-subsurface sites. She has conducted deep-biosphere studies at the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure

Chesapeake Bay impact crater

The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35 million years ago, in the late Eocene epoch. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" or marine impact craters, and the largest known impact crater in the U.S...

.

Voytek is a member of the American Geophysical Union

American Geophysical Union

The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...

 since 1990.

At the United States Geological Survey, she heads the Microbiology and Molecular Ecology team.

She took charge of the NASA Astrobiology Program on September 15, 2008, as Interim Senior Scientist for Astrobiology in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

In December 2010, she defended a news release of NASA on the possibility there might be a principally wider basis of life than so far assumed, following conclusions of a study by Felisa Wolfe-Simon

Felisa Wolfe-Simon

Felisa Wolfe-Simon is an American microbial geobiologist and biogeochemist. As a NASA research fellow in residence at the US Geological Survey and a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Wolfe-Simon led the team that discovered GFAJ-1, an extremophile bacterium that they claim is capable of...

 on the arsenic-eating bacterium GFAJ-1

GFAJ-1

GFAJ-1 is a strain of rod-shaped bacterium in the family Halomonadaceae. The extremophile was isolated from the hypersaline and alkaline Mono Lake in eastern California by a research team led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon...

, as presenting a "phenomenal finding".

Publications

• A Synopsis of Chesapeake Bay research. With Ian Morris, Sarah E. Libourel Houde, and Wayne Harrell Bell. Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies, University of Maryland System, 1988
• Ominous future under the ozone hole: assessing biological impacts in Antarctica. Environmental Defense Fund, Wildlife Program, 1989
• Relative abundance and species diversity of autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in aquatic systems. University of California, Santa Cruz 1996
• Molecular ecology of aquatic communities. With J. P. Zehr, 1999
• Preliminary assessment of microbial communities and biodegradation of chlorinated volatile organic compounds in wetlands at Cluster 13, Lauderick Creek area, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. With Michelle M. Lorah and Tracey A. Spencer. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 2003