Space Biology in the Anthropocene: Toward a Multispecies Bioprotection

In this seminar, Professor Fernandes approaches space biology as a radical laboratory of the Anthropocene due to its reliance on technology, its focus on human agency, and the expansion of human power over other-than-human beings.

Working from a multispecies perspective, she examines how recent findings about microbes – including gene transfer and communication networks, the human microbiome, and the plant rhizosphere – destabilise categorical species identities and the human exceptionalism that currently characterise planetary protection and space settlement discourse.

The research unfolds in three phases:

• a critique and reconceptualisation of planetary protection towards bioprotection, shifting monitoring from species presence to relational and gradient-based dynamics;
• a dialogue with contemporary research in space agriculture, particularly research from the Space Farming Brazil Research Network; and
• a speculative and participatory inquiry into alternative space habitation ontologies grounded in care, multispecies flourishing, and living and dying with dignity in the Anthropocene.

The seminar will emphasise productive trouble – or staying with the problem of space exploration – as a way to rethink ecological monitoring, ontological pluralism, including Indigenous and feminist literature, and what it means to build worlds amid collapse.

About the speaker

Priscila Correia Fernandes is Full Professor of Bioengineering at the Bioengineering Laboratory at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), Brazil. She is visiting Aarhus University for a sabbatical research stay from 1 March to 31 December 2026, hosted by Jens-Christian Svenning.

Date: 22 September 2026
Time: 12:30
Venue: Department of Mathematics, Ny Munkegade 118, building 1531-215, auditorium D3
Host: Jens-Christian Svenning
Format: In person only