The next RED School will be March 14-20, 2027
Discover the school program and apply
Here’s the team of teachers in charge of this year’s courses, with whom you’ll have the opportunity to interact
Planetary geology, Geochemistry, Palaeontology, Mars
Keyron Hickman-Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Planetary Exploration at Birkbeck, University of London. His research focuses on life detection in geological materials, including Earth’s earliest traces of microbial life in ancient sedimentary rocks from the Palaeoarchaean records of southern Africa and Western Australia. In paralle, he studies planetary analogue field sites—primarily alkaline lakes—with similarities to lacustrine environments on early Mars. He is also interested in developing advanced analytical techniques for palaeontological sample analysis, including nanogeoscience approaches for understanding how organic materials are preserved in rocks over short and long geological timescales. Since 2020, he has been a returned sample science participating scientist on the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, helping to select and document the Martian rock samples collected by the rover to be brought to Earth in the future. He is also a Guest Investigator on the ESA ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission, scheduled to launch in 2028. He read Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, obtained his Ph.D. at the CNRS Orléans and Università di Bologna, and was a Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum London and Imperial College London prior to joining Birkbeck.