Mr Arjun Patel

Professional biography 

2023-Present | The Open University | PhD - "How to find life on Mars: Investigating biological potential and putative biosignature formation" with the AstrobiologyOU research group

2018-2022 | University College London | MSci Earth Sciences - Final year research project: "The link between chemistry and crystallography in natural garnets"

I am a postgraduate research student at The Open University, working towards a PhD with the AstrobiologyOU research group. I joined the Open University in 2023, following a 4 year MSci degree in Earth Sciences at UCL. Following my graduation from UCL in 2022, I spent a year working in unrelated fields and found myself yearning for a return to science and academia. I was privileged to have been selected to undertake a UKSA research project in "How to find life on Mars: Investigating biological potential and putative biosignature formation" at The Open University under the supervision of Professor Susanne P.Schwenzer, Professor Karen Olsson-Francis and Dr Nisha Ramkissoon. 

Research Interests

My research interests center around Martian geochemistry and water-rock interactions. 

Image: NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

The Mars2020 Perseverance Rover seeks signs of ancient life and collects rock samples in Jezero Crater, Mars. Early samples analysed and collected by Perseverance were located on the igneous crater floor of the crater. My work focuses on Rochette, an igneous crater floor member which shows evidence of fluid alteration. Thermochemical modelling with CHIM-XPT allowed me to constrain the chemical environment under which Rochette altered. This works serves as the basis for the development of simulant material, calculation of Gibbs Free Energy changes (∆G), and microbial experiments which aim to ascertain the habitability of this environment, and the formation of biosignatures which may potentially be recorded within the Martian rocks. Thus far, this project has seen me develop skills in geochemical modelling, Raman Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Further work will see me develop skills in rock crushing, wet-lab chemistry, microbial subculturing and cell-counting. 

My undergraduate degree saw me undertake a research project in "The link between chemistry and crystallography in natural garnets". This work explored the intersection between chemistry, crystallography and mineralogy, and provided me with the opportunity to characterise several natural garnet samples for The Natural History Museum, London. For this project, I made use of Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques. 

In addition to my research, I have had the opportunity to present my work at conferences including the UK planetary forum and the British Planetary Science Conference. Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to co-review a paper for Nature Communications, and act as a teaching facilitator on the Open University S818 labcast forum.