Lisa Pratt

Lisa M. Pratt served as NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer from 2017 to 2021, leading development of technical standards for the biological cleanliness of outbound and inbound spacecraft.

From 1987 to 2017, she was a faculty member in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focus was detection of microbial life in extreme environments ranging from surface hot springs and alkaline lakes in the western United States to sulfidic groundwaters from deep gold mines in South Africa and the Canadian Arctic.

Lisa’s scientific impact has been recognized by a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2020, the President’s Medal from Indiana University in 2018, appointment as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2010, and selection as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar from 2009 to 2011.

She currently serves as co-chair of the Committee on Planetary Protection for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.