email: anbar@asu.edu

phone: 480-965-0767 (office)

office: PSF-630

Anbar is a biogeochemist interested in the past and future evolution of the Earth as a habitable planet and how this knowledge informs the search for inhabited worlds beyond Earth. His current work focuses on the environmental chemistry of bioessential and redox-sensitive transition metals, using the isotope biogeochemistry of iron, molybdenum and other “non-traditional” stable isotope systems to examine changes in metal availability through time, particularly in the Precambrian, and to develop novel isotopic biosignatures. This research has led Anbar to develop and apply new methods in isotope geochemistry and, increasingly, to make use of quantum chemical models and microbiological experiments. Anbar has also studied the atmospheric chemistry of Earth and Mars and the bombardment history of the early Earth, and is exploring the use of metal stable isotopes in biomedicine. As a Co-Investigator of the Deep Time Drilling Project of the NASA Astrobiology Institute he helps lead efforts to obtain well-preserved Precambrian sediments for paleoenvironmental research.

Anbar was awarded the Geological Society of America’s Donath Medal (Young Scientist Award) in 2002 for his pioneering research on non-traditional stable isotopes and their application to problems in Earth history, and was elected as a Fellow of the GSA in 2003.