Cecilia B. Sanders

Cecilia B. Sanders is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on the preservation and destruction of biosignatures in sedimentary deposits, particularly in phosphate-rich rocks from the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. She investigates environments such as the Salitre and Bambuí formations in Brazil and successions in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and the U.S., using techniques including Raman spectroscopy, SEM, and isotopic analysis. Her work bridges geobiology, astrobiology, and sedimentology to understand the origins and evolution of life.

Education: PhD '22 (Geobiology, Caltech); MS '18 (Planetary Science, Caltech); BA '16 (Earth and Planetary Sciences & Astrophysics, Harvard).

Research Interests: Sedimentary processes, microbial ecology, diagenesis, phosphorite formation, and astrobiological applications. She explores how environmental conditions influence fossilization and employs fieldwork, lab experiments, and modeling to reconstruct ancient ecosystems.

Awards and Fellowships:

• Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship (Smithsonian NMNH)
• Morton K. Blaustein Fellowship (Johns Hopkins)
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Labs/Teams: Leads the Sanders Lab ('SANDS OF TIME Lab'), studying sedimentary processes and biological activity's impact on the fossil record. Collaborates on projects in Brazil, Namibia, and Central Asia.