Roger Everett Summons

Roger Everett Summons FAA FRS is the Schlumberger Professor of Geobiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor of Geobiology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.[2]

Roger Everett Summons
FAA FRS
Born (1946-06-11) 11 June 1946[1]
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
ResidenceUnited States
NationalityAustralian
Alma mater
Alma materUniversity of Wollongong
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisThe alkaloids of some Australian and New Guinea plants (1971)
Doctoral advisorsEmery Gellert
J. Ellis
Websitesummons.mit.edu

Summons’ research spans biogeochemistry, geobiology, and astrobiology. His work employs organic geochemical methods to examine the lipid chemistry of modern and ancient microbes, the isotopic signatures of climate change, and the evolution and origins of life.

Summons was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.[3]

Education and early life

Roger Summons was born on 11 June 1946 in Sydney, Australia,[1] and attended Lithgow High School. He earned his B.Sc. (Honours Class I) in 1968[4] and Ph.D. in 1971 in organic chemistry from the Wollongong University College of the University of New South Wales.[5][6] This institution is now the University of Wollongong.[7] Summons' doctoral supervisors were professors Emery Gellert and J. Ellis.[5] Following graduation, Summons completed a two-year fellowship in the Genetics Department, Stanford University from 1972-1973 before starting postdoctoral and research fellowships in the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University. At Stanford, Summons worked under the direction of Alan Duffield and Joshua Lederberg.[8]

Research and career

Before joining MIT as a Professor of Geobiology in 2001, he held appointments at the Australian National University’s Research School of Biological Sciences from 1977 to 1983, and at Geoscience Australia, Canberra from 1983 to 2001, where he led a research team that focused on the characterization of the biogeochemical carbon cycle and the nature and habitat of Australian petroleum.[9]

Summons is particularly known for the application of organic geochemical techniques to sediments of Precambrian age and modern microbes in order to increase the understanding of the early evolution of life on Earth. Summons is a member of the editorial boards of the peer-reviewed scientific journals Astrobiology, Geobiology, and Palaeoworld since their inception. He also served as associate editor of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta from 1995 to 2006.

From 2003 to 2007, Summons served on three committees of the US National Research Council including the Committee on Origin and Evolution of Life, the Committee on Limits of Life, and the Committee on Mars Astrobiology. Summons served as NASA co-chair of the organic contamination panel for the Mars 2020 Rover,[10] and was a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute Executive Council from 2008 to 2017. During that time, he led the Foundations of Complex Life, the MIT NASA Astrobiology Institute team which interrogated the environmental, ecological, and genetic factors that lead to the evolution of complex life.[11][12]

In addition to actively teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses at MIT, Summons is engaged as a collaborator with the search for organics on Mars as a member of the SAM Team of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. He is also an investigator in the Simons Collaboration on the Origins of Life (SCOL).[13]

Selected papers
  • Molecular biosignatures: generic qualities of organic compounds that betray biological origins[14]
  • Ancient biomolecules: their origin, fossilization and significance in revealing the history of life[15]
  • Assessing the distribution of sedimentary C40 carotenoids through time[16]
  • Rapid oxidation of Earth's atmosphere 2.33 billion years ago[17]
  • Paleoproterozoic sterol biosynthesis and the rise of oxygen[18]
  • The ‘Dirty Ice’ of the McMurdo Ice Shelf: Analogues for biological oases during the Cryogenian[19]
  • Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old mudstones at Gale crater[20]
  • Steroids, triterpenoids and molecular oxygen[21]
  • 2-Methylhopanoids as biomarkers for cyanobacterial oxygenic photosynthesis[22]
  • Chlorobiaceae in Palaeozoic seas - Combined evidence from biological markers, isotopes and geology[23]

Honors and awards

References
  1. "Summons, Roger Everett, (FAA) (1946-)". Encyclopedia of Australian Science. National Library of Australia.
  2. "Summons, Roger | MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences". eapsweb.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  3. http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2020-nas-election.html
  4. Summons, Roger (1968). The synthesis of phenanthropiperidines (B.S., with honours thesis). Wollongong University College, The University of New South Wales. OCLC 221091817.
  5. Summons, Roger (1971). The alkaloids of some Australian and New Guinea plants (Ph.D. thesis). Wollongong University College, The University of N.S.W. OCLC 221056730.
  6. "Roger Summons - Alumni @ UOW". University of Wollongong.
  7. Formerly known as the Wollongong University College of UNSW, then part of the University of New South Wales before the University of Wollongong gained its autonomy in 1975.
  8. Hayes, John M. (October 2004). "Citation for presentation of the 2004 Alfred E. Treibs Medal to Roger Summons" (PDF). Newsletter of the Geochemical Society. Geochemical Society. p. 7.
  9. "The Summons Lab • Geobiology and Astrobiology at MIT » Roger Summons". summons.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  10. "NASA Astrobiology". astrobiology.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  11. "| NASA Astrobiology Institute". nai.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  12. "NASA Astrobiology Institute". nai.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  13. "Roger E. Summons | Simons Foundation". www.simonsfoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  14. Summons, Roger E.; Albrecht, Pierre; McDonald, Gene; Moldowan, J. Michael (2007-10-10). "Molecular Biosignatures". Space Science Reviews. 135 (1–4): 133–159. doi:10.1007/s11214-007-9256-5. ISSN 0038-6308.
  15. Briggs, Derek E. G.; Summons, Roger E. (2014-03-13). "Ancient biomolecules: Their origins, fossilization, and role in revealing the history of life". BioEssays. 36 (5): 482–490. doi:10.1002/bies.201400010. ISSN 0265-9247. PMID 24623098.
  16. French, K. L.; Rocher, D.; Zumberge, J. E.; Summons, R. E. (2015-01-28). "Assessing the distribution of sedimentary C40carotenoids through time". Geobiology. 13 (2): 139–151. doi:10.1111/gbi.12126. ISSN 1472-4677. PMID 25631735.
  17. Luo, Genming; Ono, Shuhei; Beukes, Nicolas J.; Wang, David T.; Xie, Shucheng; Summons, Roger E. (2016-05-01). "Rapid oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere 2.33 billion years ago". Science Advances. 2 (5): e1600134. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600134. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 4928975. PMID 27386544.
  18. Gold, David A.; Caron, Abigail; Fournier, Gregory P.; Summons, Roger E. (March 2017). "Paleoproterozoic sterol biosynthesis and the rise of oxygen" (PDF). Nature. 543 (7645): 420–423. doi:10.1038/nature21412. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 28264195.
  19. Hawes, I.; Jungblut, A. D.; Matys, E. D.; Summons, R. E. (2018-03-12). "The "Dirty Ice" of the McMurdo Ice Shelf: Analogues for biological oases during the Cryogenian". Geobiology. 16 (4): 369–377. doi:10.1111/gbi.12280. ISSN 1472-4677. PMID 29527802.
  20. Eigenbrode, Jennifer L.; Summons, Roger E.; Steele, Andrew; Freissinet, Caroline; Millan, Maëva; Navarro-González, Rafael; Sutter, Brad; McAdam, Amy C.; Franz, Heather B. (2018-06-08). "Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old mudstones at Gale crater, Mars". Science. 360 (6393): 1096–1101. doi:10.1126/science.aas9185. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 29880683.
  21. Summons, R. E; Bradley, A. S; Jahnke, L. L; Waldbauer, J. R (2006). "Steroids, triterpenoids and molecular oxygen". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 361 (1470): 951–968. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1837. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 1578733. PMID 16754609.
  22. Summons, Roger E.; Jahnke, Linda L.; Hope, Janet M.; Logan, Graham A. (1999). "2-Methylhopanoids as biomarkers for cyanobacterial oxygenic photosynthesis". Nature. 400 (6744): 554–557. doi:10.1038/23005. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 10448856.
  23. Summons, Roger E.; Powell, Trevor G. (1986). "Chlorobiaceae in Palaeozoic seas revealed by biological markers, isotopes and geology". Nature. 319 (6056): 763–765. doi:10.1038/319763a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  24. "Biographical entry Summons, Roger Everett (1946 - )". Encyclopedia of Australian Science. 2006-05-26. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  25. Summons, Roger (2016). "CV" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.>
  26. "Dr Roger Everett Summons". Australian Academy of Science.
  27. "Public profile". Australian Centre for Astrobiology. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  28. "Alfred Treibs Award". Geochemical Society. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  29. "Bert Halpern lecturers" (PDF). University of Wollongong. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  30. "AGU Fellows". American Geophysical Union. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  31. "Humboldt Awardee comes to Bremen: Renowned geochemist Roger Summons receives prestigious Humboldt Award for research in Bremen". Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) (Press release). Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  32. "Professor Roger Summons FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-09.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  33. Moore Distinguished Scholars (PDF). 2008 Caltech Catalog. California Institute of Technology. 2008. p. 555.
  34. "Roger Summons". University of Wollongong. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  35. "Roger E. Summons". American Academy of Microbiology. Archived from the original on 2013-04-22. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  36. "Fellows". Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg. 2018-04-09. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  37. "Roger Summons' Profile". Stanford University. Retrieved 2018-09-28.

Official website

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