David Catling is a leading scientist studying planetary atmospheres and environments that allowed life to begin and persist. Using clues from ancient rocks, he infers how Earth’s atmosphere and environment changed over billions of years. His work also resolves a decades-old problem of having enough phosphorus for life’s origin and explains how Earth’s early atmosphere supplied key molecules for life’s emergence.
Beyond Earth, he helped make the first measurements of soluble salts on Mars, investigating how they could allow liquid water to exist. Other work reveals patterns in the structure of atmospheres and how planets gain or lose atmospheres, to help understand planets orbiting other stars. He also led work that first accurately quantified biosphere-driven chemical disequilibrium in Earth’s atmosphere over geologic time, offering new insights into finding life on distant worlds.
He received a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford and is a professor at the University of Washington.
Professional position
- Professor, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington
