Prof. Sara I. Walker, Ph.D., School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, is a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, known for her work on the origins of life, particularly through her development of assembly theory with Lee Cronin. Her research explores fundamental questions about life, including how it emerges from non-living matter, how to find life on other planets, and the role of information in the universe.
She is also the deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and co-founded the astrobiology website SAGANet.org. Since joining ASU in 2013 she has built a highly interdisciplinary research program to tackle the origin of life problem from all sides. She has mentored dozens of early career scientists and leads one of the largest theory groups in origins of life and astrobiology internationally. Her team's major contributions are in theoretical advances in the field of astrobiology, developing new approaches to the problem of understanding universal features of life that might allow a general theory for solving the matter to life transition, detecting alien life and designing synthetic life.
At Arizona State University, she is Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and Associate Director of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems. She is an Associate Professor with joint appointments in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and in the School of Complex Adaptive Systems. She is also a member of the External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute.
