Charleston Reporter

Amy Williams, a Charleston native and Furman University alumna, is working with NASA’s Mars rover project as a rover collaborator at the organization’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

According to the Furman News, Williams has researched how microbes could be preserved in the geologic rock record and detected with rover-like instruments throughout her PhD. She joined the Mars Curiosity rover mission in her postdoctoral work and began researching microbes with an instrument used to remotely detect organic carbon.

“I have always wondered if we’re alone in the universe and I’ve always been intrigued with space. Serving on the mission … searching for life beyond Earth, it’s just beyond exciting to have that opportunity,” Williams told the Furman University News.

Williams joined NASA’s newest Mars rover mission, Perseverance, in 2020 as a participating scientist and astrobiologist, the report states. Perseverance landed on the Red Planet this past February. 

Williams graduated from Furman University in 2007 in the department of Earth, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences, according to the Furman News.

After graduation, Williams attended the University of New Mexico to study earth and planetary science and later got her Ph.D. in geology from the University of California, Davis, the report states.