posted 10-27-2020 09:41 AM               

Patricia Ann Straat, PhD, March 28, 1936 - October 23, 2020

Dr. Patricia Ann Straat, a pioneer of astrobiology and Mars research, has died of lung cancer. She was 84.

Born in Rochester, New York to parents Harold and Marcelline Straat, Patricia Straat attended Irondequiot High School, a public school in a suburb of Rochester. From there she attended Ohio's private Oberlin College, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. She bought her first horse at the age of 19 and would own at least one for the remainder of her life.

In 1964, Dr. Straat completed studies at Johns Hopkins University by earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry, after realizing that the profession of psychology was not for her. Over the next six years at JHU she steadily worked her way from postdoc to assistant professor; one of her expertises was working with radioactive isotopes to follow reactions. Dr. Straat explained her rationale for leaving Johns Hopkins as, "If I kept staying in jobs like this, I was never going to get my horse farm, which was my dream."

In April of 1970, Dr. Straat took a position with the small firm of Biospherics in Washington, D.C., where she worked on a variety of research programs. These included the Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer experiment aboard the Mariner 9 spacecraft, which orbited Mars in the early 1970s. Her most prominent work at Biospherics involved serving as co-investigator on one of three life-detection experiments aboard NASA's Viking Landers, which operated on the surface of Mars in the mid-1970s. Known as Labeled Release, the Biospherics experiment satisfied all of NASA's pre-launch criteria for positively discovering microbial life on the surface of Mars. Dr. Straat's combination of specialties including biochemistry, biophysics, and radioactive isotopes made her uniquely qualified to work on Viking. In her own words, "I lived this experiment for ten years." Since Viking, the somewhat controversial results continue to be reviewed and debated.

Ever resourceful, Dr. Straat managed to continue riding horses even while visiting California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during Viking operations. By sheer coincidence, next door to JPL sat a large riding club, still there today, which enabled Dr. Straat to ride seven days a week. This provided her with a welcome relief valve from the long days of exploring Mars.

After leaving Biospherics, Dr. Straat joined the National Institutes of Heath. There, she spent 21 years — first as a grants associate, and then as head of planning and coordination for the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. This transitioned into a long-term role with the NIH's Center for Scientific Review. This Center organizes the peer review groups which evaluate some 70 percent of the research grant applications sent to the NIH. Dr. Straat advanced to the CSR's Office of the Director in 1997, as a special assistant, and retired from there in 2001.

"I don't look back, I look ahead!" she was known to say.

In later years, Dr. Straat remodeled a distinguished old home on a ten-acre farm in Sykesville, Maryland. Described by one friend as "an exquisite wood-worker," in retirement Dr. Straat also trained dogs and ran a vegetable garden. Her memoirs, which largely focused on the Viking experience, were published in a 2018 book entitled "To Mars with Love." Despite caring for three horses, a donkey, a cat, and the dogs, she continued to write scientific papers, and gave many talks on the Viking life-detection experiments.

"Pat was brilliant and always a very hard worker," said Biospherics owner and Viking co-investigator Dr. Gilbert Levin. "She drove her technicians, but in a mentoring fashion, and many became lifelong friends."

She was preceded in death by her parents, and did not ever have children. Dr. Straat is survived by Mary A. Grande, her life partner for more than forty years.

There will be no public services.