Dr. Dawson is a Project Administrator, Grants Administrator, and Scientist at the SETI Institute, supporting the Virtual Planetary Laboratory led by SETI Senior Research Scientist Dr. Victoria Meadows. Dr. Dawson serves as the Project Administrator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) run by Dr. Meadows, a 75-member multi-institution, interdisciplinary, and geographically distributed research team combining scientific models and laboratory and field work to constrain planetary habitability by understanding the interactions between life and a planetary and stellar environment. Dr. Dawson has a dual-title Ph.D. in Oceanography & Astrobiology from the University of Washington, using next generation sequencing and novel methods in mass spectrometry to characterize the community and chemical composition that enables the survival of microbial life within sea ice. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Dawson worked as an Arctic Activities Coordinator at NOAA, managing the engagement of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Arctic scientist with academic, agency, and community representatives.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ihH6cXQAAAAJ