Nathalie Cabrol

Nathalie Cabrol is an astrobiologist and the Director of SETI Institute Carl Sagan Center for Research where she spearheads a new multidisciplinary roadmap to bridge astrobiology and SETI. She has a background in planetary and environmental sciences, and astrobiology.

Her research focuses on the exploration of habitability and life beyond Earth. She counts over 470 peer-reviewed publications and proceedings of professional conferences and is the author of three books and 10 chapters of books on the subject of planetary science and exploration, astrobiology and terrestrial extreme environments. Cabrol is the recipient of NASA and other research awards. She is a Carey Fellow (Wings Worldquest Women of Discovery - Air and Space, 2007), and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences since 2016. She was honored to present the Sagan Lecture at AGU in December 2016.

Cabrol has given over 400 public lectures on the subjects of planetary science, exploration, and the search for life beyond Earth, including a TED Talk in 2015. In March 2018, the New York Times Sunday Magazine featured a portrait of her work and life. Cabrol holds the women's world record for diving at altitude (scuba and free diving).

Cabrol graduated from the Lycée Corneille (France) and obtained her baccalaureat from the Academy of Versailles in 1982; received a license in physical geography in 1985 from the Nanterre University (France) with specialization in remote sensing, climatology, natural hazards, and hydrology; obtained her master in planetary sciences from the Sorbonne University, Paris, in 1986 and her Ph.D in planetary sciences from the same university in 1991. After two years of post-doctoral studies at the Observatory of Paris-Meudon, she was invited to work at the NASA Ames Research Center in California in 1994 with a post-doctoral grant from the French Ministry of Research. Selected as a National Research Council Fellow in 1996, she started developing exploration strategies for robotic and human planetary missions at NASA Ames. Since 1998, she is a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute Carl Sagan Center and a contractor of the NASA Ames Research Center where her office is located at the Space Science & Astrobiology Division. She became a US citizen in 2006.