Roger Everett Summons 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. 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.
Education and early life
Roger Summons was born on 11 June 1946 in Sydney, Australia, and attended Lithgow High School. He earned his B.Sc. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1971 in organic chemistry from the Wollongong University College of the University of New South Wales. This institution is now the University of Wollongong. Summons' doctoral supervisors were professors Emery Gellert and J. Ellis. 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.
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. 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 journalsAstrobiology, Geobiology, and Palaeoworld since their inception. He also served as associate editor of the peer-reviewed scientific journalGeochimica 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, 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. 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.
Selected papers
Molecular biosignatures: generic qualities of organic compounds that betray biological origins
Ancient biomolecules: their origin, fossilization and significance in revealing the history of life
Assessing the distribution of sedimentary C40 carotenoids through time
