team

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Kai Rasmussen (he/him)

Kai Rasmussen is an alumnus of the NASA funded Gilroy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied genetic expression of plants grown in space. He is passionate about science outreach and education and founded astrobotany.com in February 2017 with the goal of providing resources to spaceflight plant researchers and the public.  He is currently the director of astrobotany.com.

Sam Humphrey (he/they)

Sam Humphrey is a Masters student in the Horticultural Science Department at North Carolina State University. Currently he is working on database and journal projects with Astrobotany.com, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, and he recently led a team of engineers to design a space plant growth chamber for the NASA/Fairchild Growing Beyond Earth Maker Contest. Sam loves sharing his passion for astrobotany, controlled environment agriculture, and bioregenerative life support with anyone who will listen, and he writes informative articles for Astrobotany.com.

Gil Cauthorn (he/him)

Gil Cauthorn is an astrobotany research and education program coordinator in Japan. His research has focused on morphological variation of microgreens in space, and has been conducted in support of NASA researchers as well as in collaboration with the Gilroy Lab. He is the development director of AIRI (Astrobotany International Research Initiative) and a primary investigator with Magnitude.io, currently focusing on the application of legume and rhizobia symbiotic interactions in bioregenerative life-support systems in space.

Dr. Richard Barker (he/him)

Dr. Richard Barker is a postdoctoral research associate in the Gilroy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Dr. Barker helped complete the first full transcriptomic RNAseq analysis of Arabidopsis Thaliana from BRIC19.  He creates data visualization tools to make spaceflight data accessible to the public.

Isaac Evavold (he/him)

Isaac Evavold is a programmer and web developer in the Gilroy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He helps manage data/database interfaces and is the main web developer and designer for astrobotany.com.

Dr. Simon Gilroy (he/him)

Dr. Simon Gilroy is the PI of the Gilroy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His research focus is spaceflight plant biology and plant cell signaling.  He is a life science advisor to Congress and NASA and is a consultant for astrobotany.com.

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