Question: which do you prefer? microbiology or astrobiology?

Michael C Macey answered on 30 Nov 2023:

My main passion is still microbiology, as it is such a vast field with so many interesting attributes (trying to identify novel species, identifying how elements cycle in the environments, if we can identify novel antibiotics), but astrobiology is also a growing and fascinating field. My microbiology informs astrobiology by identifying how microbes survive under extremes relevant to environments on other worlds.

One of the exciting things about astrobiology is that it is so interdisciplinary – in the group at the OU I work with geologists, modellers, physicists, chemists and sociologists, and I have learnt some much from them.