What is the best web address for people to learn more about you?
Michael New
Profile
-
-
What would you like us to know about you?Michael New was born and raised in New York City, specifically the Bronx and Queens. Tired of the fast-paced urban experience, he decamped to the wilds of New Haven, CT. After four years of experiments aimed at settling the age-old question of whether Pepe’s or Sally’s made the better pizza ended inconclusively, Yale University banished him from Elm City with a BS in chemistry. Undeterred, he returned home, where he earned a PhD in chemical physics at Columbia University in 1994. In search of the world's worst pastrami sandwich, he then relocated to the left coast, specifically to the People’s Republic of Berkeley, where he held post-doctoral positions in the UC Berkeley chemistry department and the UC San Francisco department of pharmaceutical chemistry. He is quick to point out that, due to the presence of deer in his backyard, Berkeley is the most rural place he has ever lived. Following a long-time addiction to Star Trek, Michael joined the civil servant staff of the Exobiology Branch at NASA Ames Research Center in 1998. He was disappointed when he wasn’t issued a phaser and a stretchy red shirt. In 2001, Michael agreed, despite the advice of friends and strangers alike, to become the Deputy Branch Chief where he dealt with several major safety and financial crises, in the process learning more than he never wanted to know about the Legionella bacterium and full-cost accounting. Shaken by this compound exposure to bacteria and accounting, and having discovered the worst pastrami sandwich in the world (in a deli in Berkeley who’s name must not be spoken aloud) and an unexplainable interest in NASA management, Michael relocated back to the east and became the Astrobiology Discipline Scientist at NASA HQ. Michael’s research interests are very wide, encompassing the biophysics of basic life processes, the statistical analysis of complex ecological experiments, machine learning, bio-informatics and the application of complexity theory and computer science to the origin of life. He has studied the hydrophobic effect in model systems (with Bruce Berne), the primary electron transfer event in the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center (with David Chandler and Raymond Yee) and transmembrane proton transport (with Andrew Pohorille) using computer simulations. He has also collaborated with Ken Cullings on understanding the interactions of trees and fungi in old growth forests and with Ryan Weber on the development of new tools for the automated annotation of genomes. His most recent research has focused on a novel mechanism for evolution in the absence of information storage; a concept he and Andrew Pohorille have called “non-genomic evolution.” Michael is the recipient of an NSF Pre-doctoral Fellowship, the J. Malcolm Miller Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Chemistry Department of Columbia University and several “Spotlight” awards from NASA Ames Research Center. He is an Eagle Scout.
-
Where do you work?NASA