Melissa Trainer
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'''Melissa G. Trainer''' ([[April 22]], [[1978]] in [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]]) is an [[astrobiology|astrobiologist]] who in 2004 demonstrated empirically that life could have formed on Earth through the interaction of methane, carbon dioxide and ultraviolet light (sunlight), fundamentally revising [[Miller-Urey experiment|fifty years]] of theory about the origins of life.{{Fact|date=July 2007}}
While a doctoral student at the [[University of Colorado at Boulder]] in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, working in the field of [[atmospheric chemistry]], she conducted two experimental studies on the formation of aerosols ([[tholin]]s) in the early atmosphere of Earth and the current atmosphere of [[Titan (moon)|Titan]]. Project investigator Owen Toon reported, "As had been predicted in some theoretical studies we found that the production rate of aerosols declines as the abundance of CO<sub>2</sub> relative to methane increases in simulated terrestrial atmospheres." [http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/year6/year4.cfm?PageAction=5&Section=11&Page=27&Proj=754]
Trainer and her coexperimenters reported on their findings in ''Astrobiology'' 4(4): 409-419, in a 2004 paper called "Haze Aerosols in the Atmosphere of Early Earth: Manna from Heaven". [http://cires.colorado.edu/~trainer/astrobiologypaper.pdf]
She later presented the findings at the 2006 [[NASA]] Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in March 2006 where she was recognized for her work.
Raised in northern New Jersey since the age of four, Melissa Trainer attended [[Hackensack High School]]<ref>Saks, Kaet. [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-22494636.html "SHE'LL REAP THE REWARDS OF CONTINUOUS ACTIVITY"], ''[[The Record (Bergen County)]]'', [[November 14]], [[1995]]. Accessed [[February 12]], [[2008]]. "Hackensack High School senior Melissa Trainer finds herself with an embarrassment of riches"</ref>, from which she graduated as Valedictorian in 1996. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at [[Franklin and Marshall College]] in Lancaster, PA, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Abstract Mathematics in 2000. She was married in September 2005.
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Sources==
* [http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~trainer/bio.html Subject’s bio]
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[[Category:1978 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Biochemists]]
[[Category:Franklin & Marshall College alumni]]
[[Category:People from Bergen County, New Jersey]]