Richard J. Barker, PhD
I help plants and fungi grow where they shouldn't — from the lunar surface and orbital microgravity to a warming Midwest.
- Co-Founder, AstroBotany.com & CoSE Benefit Corp (Sector67, Madison, WI)
- Science Co-Lead for NASA Lunar LEAF at Purdue University
- Chair of the NASA GeneLab Plant Analysis Working Group (100+ global scientists)
- 2018 Recipient of the UW–Madison Undergraduate Mentoring Award
Real-World Impact
What I Do
1. Space Agriculture & Extreme Stress Physiology
Plants didn't evolve to fly in space or grow on the Moon. Without gravity, air doesn't circulate on its own: warm, oxygen-depleted gas clings to plant leaves like an invisible blanket, triggering suffocating hypoxia and oxidative stress.
I design experimental payloads, gas exchange models, and hardware that enable crops to thrive in microgravity on the International Space Station and future lunar habitats under the NASA Lunar LEAF mission.
2. Fungal Biomanufacturing & Mycoponics
Fungi are nature's ultimate recyclers and bio-architects. In our 2026 Biotechnology Journal front-cover study, we introduced Mycoponics: a method to grow fungal mycelium on biophysical porous ceramics with precisely metered liquid nutrient delivery.
This creates lightweight, high-strength circular biomaterials and sustainable food production systems that require zero soil — ideal for lunar outposts and climate-resilient terrestrial manufacturing.
3. AI, Foundation Models & Biological Digital Twins
Modern biology produces mountains of omics data. I develop artificial intelligence tools, representation learning systems (like GLARE in npj Microgravity), and foundation model exploration toolkits (such as the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model pipeline) that allow researchers to simulate biological outcomes before launching costly experiments.
I lead the NASA GeneLab Plant AWG, uniting over 100 scientists to standardize how biological spaceflight data is analyzed and shared freely across the globe.
4. Citizen Science, Mentorship & Public Wonder
Science belongs to everyone. Through AstroBotany.com and the CoSE Benefit Corporation, we distribute computer vision calibration tools (ABCD card) and plant science kits to over 3,000 classrooms internationally with partners like Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
As the recipient of the 2018 UW–Madison Undergraduate Mentoring Award, I have trained dozens of students — especially from first-generation backgrounds via the PEOPLE Program — to become confident researchers, coders, and makers.
Stories & Highlights
"Wisconsin is Putting Down Roots in Space"
Featured during the national Big Ten Network halftime broadcast LiveBIG, sharing our plant spaceflight experiments in Birge Hall with millions of television viewers.
Mycoponics Front Cover Feature
Selected for the journal's front cover for demonstrating engineered solid-state fungal bioproduction with liquid nutrient feeds for deep space exploration.
UK International Outreach Tour
Organized and delivered the "Plant BRICs in Space" lecture at the Natural History Museum in London, followed by seminars at Cambridge and Nottingham.
"Life in Space Isn't Easy, Even If You're Green"
A lively, illustrated popular science breakdown explaining why plants experience stress in microgravity and how botanists are helping them adapt.
AstroBotany in K-12 Classrooms
Collaborating with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden's Growing Beyond Earth and Magnitude.io to empower middle and high school students to gather flight-comparable plant phenomics.
20+ Years Teaching Capoeira
Teaching Afro-Brazilian Capoeira in the UK and Madison: cultivating physical balance, mental resilience, music, and an inclusive community culture that grounds my scientific work.
Try These in Your Browser Right Now
LunarLeaf-CFD
Validated in-browser CFD model of gravity-dependent gas-exchange boundary layers around Arabidopsis leaves in lunar and orbital microenvironments.
LunarFarm-BLSS
What a playable closed loop teaches about closing one: an interactive bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) architecture simulation.
lunar-lfm-explorer
FAIR exploration toolkit and multi-illumination inference viewer for the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model.
plant-pathway-atlas
Modernized MapMan, PlantCyc, and ggPlant visualization engine for plant systems biology and cross-species metabolic mapping.
fungal-bgc-atlas
Curated, evidence-linked knowledge base of 609 MIBiG-linked fungal biosynthetic gene clusters with structural annotations.
arabidopsis-atlas
Interactive organ-selectable 3D anatomical atlas of Arabidopsis thaliana grounded in validated structural data.
Ways We Can Work Together
🔬 Scientific Research & Extramural Grants
Interested in joint proposals across space biology, plant and fungal stress signaling, controlled environment agriculture, or biological digital twins? Let's connect.
🌱 Educational & Classroom Partnerships
Bringing space biology, micro-controllers, or open phenotyping into your high school, community college, or botanical garden? We provide tested calibration tools and curricula.
🎙️ Talks, Panels & Public Communication
Keynotes, interactive workshops, and podcasts on the future of food in space, fungal biomanufacturing, and open-science data repositories.
💡 Technology & Data Consulting
Advising on space biology hardware payload architectures, automated microgravity experiment design, and biological AI data pipelines.