ROGER E. SUMMONS
Professor of Geobiology
Department of Earth, Atmospheric,
and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPHOTO BY PHOEBE A. COHENIn 1979, Roger Summons was a research officer at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra studying photosynthesis and the structure of plant hormones. His perspective on science was about to change, thanks to two visitors to the university from California. The first was UC San Diego biologist Andrew Benson—one of the three scientists who elucidated the fixation of carbon in photosynthesis (known as the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle). Summons was charged with managing the logistics of Benson’s sabbatical in Australia to ensure it was a fruitful one.
Benson took Summons on the young researcher’s first field trip—to the Great Barrier Reef, where the two conducted studies on the accumulation of arsenic in marine algae and invertebrates. “It was observing him at work and discussions with him about how science works that changed my perspective completely,” Summons recalls.
“My personal opinion is that there is currently no tangible evidence that Mars is alive. But we probably have not yet looked at enough types of rocks to know whether it was ever alive in the past.”
A short time later, at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences in Queensland, Summons met earth scientist Preston Cloud of UC Santa Barbara. Cloud was studying the beginnings of life on Earth by coordinating discoveries about early microfossils ...
