Crossroads of Ideas: Growing Without Gravity

Ready to leave Earthly bounds behind? Join us for an absolutely out-of-this-world Crossroads of Ideas, where astrobiology and astrochemistry come together in cosmic fashion! Plant biologist Dr. Simon Gilroy and astrochemist Dr. Susanna Widicus Weaver are your guides for an evening of star-studded discovery, diving into everything from the surprising resilience of plants in space to the chemistry that could hint at life beyond our planet. Moderated by Eric Wilcots, this event will tackle cosmic questions like: How do plants handle the zero-gravity chaos of space? Could the stars themselves hold the recipe for life? With Gilroy’s upcoming plant experiment on the International Space Station and Weaver’s quest to uncover the secrets of interstellar molecules, this is more than a talk—it’s an invitation to explore life’s mysteries among the stars!

Guest presenters Simon Gilroy, Susanna Widicus Weaver, and moderated by Eric Wilcots.

Dr. Simon Gilroy is a plant biologist whose research seeks to understand how plants and microbes respond to the alien world of spaceflight. He received his bachelor’s degree in botany from the university of Cambridge in England and a Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California at Berkeley before becoming a faculty member at PennState and then moving to his current position in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007. He is a fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science and a recipient UW-Madison’s Bassam Shakashiri Public Science Engagement Award. He serves on NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee and is currently preparing to send his seventh plant experiment to the International Space Station in March 2025.

Susanna Widicus Weaver, Vozza Professor of Chemistry and Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin, is an expert in prebiotic astrochemistry. Her research, combining laboratory spectroscopy, observational astronomy, and chemical modeling, is aimed at understanding the mechanisms driving interstellar chemistry and the pathways for the formation of life. She received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Illinois Wesleyan University (2000) and her Ph.D. in chemistry at Caltech (2005). She was a postdoctoral fellow in Chemistry and Astronomy at the University of Illinois from 2005-2008. Before moving to Wisconsin in 2020, she was a Professor of Chemistry at Emory University. She is the Provisional Director of the Wisconsin Center for Origins Research at UW-Madison. She is also a member of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable at the National Academy of Sciences.

We value inclusion and access for all participants. If you would like to request reasonable accommodations to enhance your participation experience, please email idhub@wid.wisc.edu no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. This event is wheelchair accessible.