Dr. Margaret Race, a biologist at the SETI Institute, is an expert in the field of planetary protection, analyzing issues of cross-contamination both in space and on Earth. She works closely with NASA in studying scientific, policy and public issues associated with solar system exploration. She has served on three major national studies involving planetary protection, and recently completed work on several NASA projects related to Mars exploration- one that developed scientific protocols for handling, quarantining and testing Martian samples, and two that analyzed the technical and scientific issues associated with human missions to Mars.