Mr. Joshua Stern, a second year PhD student in Prof. Gaucher's group, was recently awarded a three-year fellowship by NASA's Earth and Space Science Program. Josh plans to reconstruct and resurrect, in silico and in vitro, the 50S ribosome of the bacterial progenitor of life. This project addresses the early evolution of translation, a process that arguably was necessary for life subject to Darwinian evolution. He also benefits from the collegial and supportive environment at the Georgia Tech / NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution.