Richard J. Barker, PhD
Plant systems biologist, biophysical instrumentation developer, and computational researcher specializing in photosynthetic boundary-layer transport, primary carbon allocation, organelle stress signaling, and biological digital twins.
- Current: Senior Scientist & Science Co-Lead, NASA Lunar LEAF (Purdue University, Dept. of Agricultural & Biological Engineering)
- Consortium Leadership: Chair, NASA GeneLab Plant Analysis Working Group (100+ international researchers)
- Academic Pedigree: 11 years at UW–Madison (Botany & Genetics); Ph.D. from Rothamsted Research & University of Nottingham
Scholarly Profile & Research Program
I am a plant systems biologist, biophysical instrumentation developer, and computational researcher specializing in photosynthetic boundary-layer transport, primary carbon allocation, organelle stress signaling, and biological digital twins. Trained in hormone biochemistry and genetics at Rothamsted Research and the University of Nottingham (Lawes Trust Agricultural Scholar) under Prof. Peter Hedden, I spent eleven years in research and instructional leadership at the University of Wisconsin–Madison across the Departments of Botany and Genetics.
My program bridges biophysical experimentation with high-throughput computational biology. I serve as Science Co-Lead for the NASA Lunar LEAF Science Definition Team (with Prof. D. Marshall Porterfield at Purdue University), direct the international NASA GeneLab Plant Analysis Working Group (AWG) representing 100+ members, and maintain over 150 open-source repositories of FAIR computational pipelines, IoT phenotyping firmware, and biological modeling suites. I have co-secured ~$2,000,000 in competitive extramural funding and received the 2018 UW–Madison Undergraduate Mentoring Award.
Professional Appointments
-
2024 – PresentSenior Scientist & Science Co-Lead (NASA Lunar LEAF)Purdue University · Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (West Lafayette, IN)Science Co-Lead for NASA Lunar LEAF Science Definition Team with Prof. D. Marshall Porterfield; investigates biophysical fluid mechanics of plant/fungal growth interfaces, physics-informed neural network boundary layer modeling, and solid-state nutrient delivery systems (Mycoponics).
-
2018 – PresentChair, Plant Analysis Working Group (AWG)NASA GeneLab / Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) · NASA Ames Space Biosciences / Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (Moffett Field, CA)Lead an international consortium of 100+ plant, microbial, and spaceflight biologists across academia, government, and industry; coordinate monthly governance meetings, standardized open-science consensus pipelines, metadata harmonization, and workshop symposia.
-
2024 – PresentChair, Education and Outreach CommitteeAmerican Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) · Executive Leadership (USA)Direct society-wide strategic communications, student research engagement, national conference outreach events, and multi-platform media outreach.
-
2023 – 2024Project ScientistNASA GeneLab / Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) · Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (Moffett Field, CA)Led cross-kingdom multi-omics data harmonization, automated bioinformatics pipeline integration, and FAIR scientific data tutorials under Branch Chief Dr. Sylvain Costes.
-
2017 – PresentCo-Founder & Director of OperationsCollaborative Science Environment (CoSE) Benefit Corp & AstroBotany.com · Sector67 (Madison, WI)Built and deployed open-source phenotyping calibration kits (ABCD card) and citizen-science learning platforms reaching over 3,000 classrooms internationally through partnerships with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Growing Beyond Earth) and Magnitude.io (ExoLab).
-
2022 – 2023Chief Data Scientist & ConsultantYuri Gravity · Flight Biotechnology (Meckenbeuren, Germany)Designed computational flight bioreactor telemetry pipelines, hardware interfaces, and stakeholder data delivery protocols for automated microgravity space biology missions.
-
2014 – 2023Scientist (2015–2023) & Postdoctoral Research Associate (2014–2015)University of Wisconsin–Madison · Department of Botany (Prof. Simon Gilroy Laboratory), Birge Hall (Madison, WI)Conducted live biosensor imaging of ROS and calcium signaling cascades; co-led spaceflight biological payloads on the International Space Station; managed multi-unit lab operations, grant proposal compilation, web administration, and directly mentored 20+ undergraduate researchers (2018 UW–Madison Mentoring Award).
-
2012 – 2014Postdoctoral Research AssociateUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison · Department of Genetics (Prof. Patrick Masson Laboratory) (Madison, WI)Engineered robotic kinematic imaging hardware, automated seed sowing manifolds, and high-throughput phenotyping platforms for root gravitropism studies.
-
2002 – 2007Laboratory & Greenhouse Research AssistantJohn Innes Centre · Cell & Developmental Biology (Prof. Mike Bevan Laboratory) (Norwich, UK)Functional genomics, molecular mapping, and controlled greenhouse cultivation of Arabidopsis thaliana.
Sponsored Research Grants & Extramural Funding
| Project Title | Sponsoring Agency & Program | Role & Leadership | Period | Award Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Lunar LEAF: Lunar Ecosystem and Agricultural Feasibility
Science definition, boundary-layer biophysical modeling, and payload instrumentation for lunar plant/fungal growth systems.
|
NASA Biological & Physical Sciences (BPS) |
Science Co-Lead
PI: Prof. D. Marshall Porterfield (Purdue University) |
2024 – 2027 | $600,000 |
|
NASA TASTIE: Plant-Microbe Spaceflight Interactions & Transcriptomic Adaptation
Investigation of plant root-microbiome molecular adaptations under microgravity and spaceflight stress conditions.
|
NASA Biological & Physical Sciences (BPS) |
Co-Investigator
PI: Prof. Simon Gilroy (UW–Madison) |
2021 – 2024 | $750,000 |
|
GeneLab: Extending the Reach of the Data System Across Kingdoms
Consensus RNA-seq pipeline standardisation, metadata ontology harmonization, and cross-kingdom spaceflight datasets.
|
NASA Space Biology (NNH16ZTT001N-GL) |
Co-Investigator
PI: NASA GeneLab Consortium |
2018 – 2021 | $300,000 |
|
TOAST Cross-Kingdom Discovery Portal
Test of Arabidopsis Space Transcriptome: unified relational query and visualization environment for space flight experiments.
|
NASA GeneLab Innovation Award |
Co-Investigator
PI: Barker / Gilroy |
2016 – 2019 | $250,000 |
|
MANGO Multi-Attribute Omics Engine
Interactive multidimensional analytics engine for microbiome, radiation, and transcriptomic space biological data.
|
NASA JPL / Space Biosciences |
Co-Investigator
PI: NASA Space Biosciences |
2018 – 2021 | $110,000 |
|
AstroBotany Educational Gaming & Phenotyping Collaboration
Community co-design of educational space biology games and IoT automated phenotyping chambers with Gear Learning and Boys & Girls Club.
|
Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC) |
Principal Investigator
PI: Richard Barker (UW–Madison / CoSE) |
2018 – 2019 | $40,000 |
Contributed Proposal Sections & Preliminary Data
| Project Title | Agency | Role | Period | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mechanical & Pathogen Response Pathways in Arabidopsis | National Science Foundation (NSF) | Data & Proposal Contributor (PI: Prof. Simon Gilroy) | 2018 – 2021 | $400,000 |
| APEX-06: Brachypodium Spaceflight Adaptation | NASA Space Biology (NNH14ZTT001N) | Data & Proposal Contributor (PI: Prof. Patrick Masson) | 2017 – 2019 | $300,000 |
Peer-Reviewed Publications & Technical Standards
-
Gravitational and Space Research, 14(1): 106-118.Simple Online Automated Plant Phenomics (SOAPP): web-based quantitative image processing for spaceflight flight hardware images.
-
New Phytologist, 249(2): 656-669.Comprehensive vision for plant biology in space exploration and terrestrial planetary resilience.
-
Biotechnology Journal, 21(2): e70184.Inaugural demonstration of Mycoponics: growing fungal mycelium on biophysical porous ceramics with liquid nutrient delivery for sustainable biomaterials and circular food systems.
-
Journal Article.
-
Zenodo / GitHub Open Software.Vision Transformer (ViT-B) exploration toolkit and multi-illumination topographic inference pipeline for the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model.
-
npj Microgravity, 11(1): 57.Critical investments needed in Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) for sustained lunar habitation and bioastronautics.
-
npj Microgravity, 11(1): 45.
-
npj Microgravity, 11(1): 76.GLARE uses representation learning and foundation latent space extraction to uncover hidden molecular signatures across spaceflight transcriptomics.
-
Gravitational and Space Research, 13(1): 30-38.
-
npj Microgravity, 11(1): 52.
-
Scientific Reports, 14(1): 13098.
-
Nature Communications, 15(1): 4952.Comprehensive multi-tissue astronaut omics atlas characterizing spaceflight stress responses at molecular scale.
-
npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, 10(1): 71.
-
Plant Molecular Biology, 114(4): 79.
-
Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(3): 208-219.Roadmap for autonomous, self-driving biological laboratories and AI-driven experiment orchestration on deep space exploration missions.
-
Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(3): 196-207.Artificial intelligence frameworks for real-time biological health monitoring and precision biosensing in extreme deep space environments.
-
npj Microgravity, 9(1): 21.Comprehensive multi-mission meta-analysis of Arabidopsis spaceflight transcriptomes revealing hardware boundary layer micro-environments as the dominant stress driver.
-
Methods in Molecular Biology.
-
Microbiology Spectrum, 10(1): e01994-21.
-
Plant Physiology, 190(4): 2617-2636.
-
Methods in Molecular Biology.The Automated Botanical Contact Device (ABCD): an engineered mechatronic system delivering reproducible touch stimulation to growing plants.
-
New Phytologist, 229(3): 1521-1534.Cell-type resolution mapping of gibberellin hormone biosynthesis within the Arabidopsis root tip, resolving the spatial coordination of plant root growth.
-
iScience, 24(4): 102361.Establishment of the standardized NASA GeneLab RNA-seq consensus pipeline for reproducible processing of space biology datasets.
-
npj Microgravity, 7(1): 15.Rad-Bio-App: an open-science platform for biologists to explore and model space radiation exposures across historical missions.
-
Patterns, 1(9): 100148.International consortium standards establishing FAIR guidelines and reproducible processing workflows for space life sciences.
-
International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(18): 6762.
-
Fundamental Biological Features of Spaceflight: Advancing the Field to Enable Deep-Space ExplorationCell, 183(5): 1162-1184.Multi-omics landmark paper defining the fundamental biological features of human and plant spaceflight across NASA GeneLab datasets.
-
Frontiers in Plant Science, 11: 147.Test of Arabidopsis Space Transcriptome (TOAST): an open-science relational portal enabling plant biologists worldwide to explore microgravity and spaceflight datasets.
-
Plant Methods, 15(1): 6.Design and deployment of an open-source, low-cost Raspberry Pi automated imaging platform for continuous plant phenotyping.
-
American Journal of Botany, 106(1): 123-136.
-
The Biochemist, 39(6): 10-13.Popular science feature in The Biochemist detailing what happens to living cells when gravity is removed.
-
Methods in Molecular Biology.
-
Gravitational and Space Research, 4(2): 8-19.Far-red light hardware systems engineered to reliably impose and release seed dormancy for spaceflight mission profiles.
-
Methods in Molecular Biology.
-
Plant Methods, 9(1): 41.The Vacuum Seed Sowing Manifold: an open-source vacuum-assisted hardware tool enabling precise high-throughput arraying of small seeds.
Honors & Awards
-
2026Front Cover Feature, Biotechnology JournalWiley-VCH / Biotechnology Journal (Vol. 21, Issue 2)Featured for inaugural Mycoponics publication: Controlled Bioproduction Utilizing Biophysical, Solid-State, Liquid Nutrient Delivery.
-
2019Thora Halstead Young Investigator AwardAmerican Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR)National recognition for pioneering contributions to space gravitational plant biology and open-science data frameworks.
-
2018Undergraduate Mentoring AwardUniversity of Wisconsin–MadisonAwarded for exceptional multi-year research mentoring of >20 undergraduate and post-baccalaureate scholars in Birge Hall, including underrepresented students via the PEOPLE Program.
-
2015WARF / Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) StartUp Weekend WinnerWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)Director of winning 'FlashLapse' automated plant phenotyping imaging team.
-
2010BBSRC Biotechnology Business Competition National Finalist (2nd Place)Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Oxford, UKSelected across UK universities for commercialization concept in agricultural biotechnology.
-
2008 – 2009Best Science Communication Student AwardRothamsted Research, UKRecognized for translating agricultural hormone biochemistry and genetics to public and student audiences.
-
2007 – 2011Lawes Trust Agricultural ScholarshipLawes Agricultural Trust & Rothamsted Research, UKPrestigious 4-year doctoral fellowship supporting research in plant science and gibberellin hormone biochemistry.
-
2006Kenneth Whymes Memorial Prize for Distinction in Plant ScienceUniversity of Nottingham, UKConferred for top academic standing in undergraduate plant sciences.
Education & Executive Training
-
2007 – 2011Ph.D. in Plant Science & Hormone BiochemistryUniversity of Nottingham & Rothamsted Research, UK
- Thesis: Molecular genetics and spatial regulation of gibberellin biosynthesis in the Arabidopsis root tip
- Supervisor: Prof. Peter Hedden (Rothamsted Research)
- Honors: Lawes Trust Agricultural Scholarship
-
2003 – 2007B.Sc. (Hons) in Plant Science (First Class Honours)University of Nottingham, UK
- First Class Honours with University Certificate of Merit
- Awarded the Kenneth Whymes Memorial Prize for Distinction in Plant Science (2006)
Executive & Specialized Technical Training
-
2020American Family Insurance Social Impact Educational AcceleratorStrategic communications, KPI analytics, and stakeholder/donor stewardship
-
2023 – 2024NASA Transform to Open Science (TOPS) CurriculumOpen-source science standards, FAIR research reproducibility
-
2021NASA Spaceflight Technologies, Applications & Research (STAR) LeadershipSpace biology payload architecture and flight operational management
-
2021 – 2022Software & Data CarpentryReproducible research data workflows, shell scripting, Git version control
-
2015UW–Madison DELTA Teaching & Mentoring ProgramEvidence-based STEM pedagogical design, inclusive research mentoring
Instructional & Mentoring Leadership
-
2012 – 2023UW–Madison Undergraduate Mentoring LeadershipUniversity of Wisconsin–MadisonDirectly mentored 20+ undergraduate and post-baccalaureate researchers across Botany and Genetics. Mentored students have gone on to doctoral programs, industry careers, and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed papers.
-
2017 – 2020AstroBotany Experiential Project-Based LaboratoryUW–Madison & Sector67Founded and instructed an interdisciplinary lab where undergraduates designed microcontroller plant growth chambers, computer vision algorithms, and plant stress assays.
-
2022 – 2025Curriculum Lead & Instructor, NASA GeneLab for High SchoolsNASA Space BiosciencesTrained over 500 educators and advanced high school students nationwide in Linux command line, RNA-seq quantification, and FAIR data curation.
-
2016 – 2023Pre-College STEM Mentorship (PEOPLE Program)University of Wisconsin–MadisonMentored first-generation and underrepresented pre-college scholars in Birge Hall labs and co-developed virtual space biology workshops during COVID-19.
-
2016 – PresentUniversity Guest LecturerUW–Madison & Purdue UniversityLectures delivered across Plant Physiology (Botany 500), Plant Development, Molecular Genetics (Genetics 560), and ABE Sensor Systems.
-
2004 – PresentCapoeira Instructor & Community PractitionerUK & Madison, WIOver 20 years teaching Afro-Brazilian Capoeira, fostering inclusive community movement, mutual respect, and student mental and physical wellbeing.
Professional Service & Review Panels
-
2018 – PresentChair, Plant Analysis Working Group (AWG)NASA GeneLab / Open Science Data Repository (OSDR)Coordinates 100+ international researchers; hosts monthly scientific seminars; publishes standardized pipelines; organizes annual public workshops at ASGSR and COSPAR.
-
2024 – PresentChair, Education and Outreach CommitteeAmerican Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR)Leads national conference student programs, public outreach initiatives, and social media communications.
-
2019 – PresentFederal Peer ReviewerNational Science Foundation (NSF) & NASANSF Proto-OKN Expert Panel (2023–2024); NASA TOPS & ROSES Open-Source Science (2023); NASA Space Biology ad-hoc reviewer.
-
2015 – PresentJournal Peer ReviewerInternational Scientific JournalsRegular reviewer for Nature Communications, npj Microgravity, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plant Methods, Biotechnology Journal, iScience, Patterns, and International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Federal Peer Review Panels
-
2023 – 2024Expert Peer Review Panelist · National Science Foundation (NSF)Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN) Solicitation Panel
-
2023Scientific Peer Review Panelist · National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)Transform to Open Science (TOPS) & ROSES-23 F.15 Open-Source Science
-
2019 – PresentAd-hoc Reviewer · NASA Space BiologyFlight and Ground Research Proposals