China Scholarship Council Program of the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB-CSC Program)

Background:

• 11/2016 - 09/2018

PhD Student in the research group of Planetary Science by Space Missions at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Germany

• 09/2015 - 10/2016

PhD student for Marine Geology at Sanya Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 06/2015 - 08/2015

Technician at Sanya Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science

• 03/2014 - 09/2014

Technician at Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics (WIPM), Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 10/2013 - 12/2013

Visiting student project: Study the pigmented atmospheric microbes living on the atmosphere of exoplanets at the Department of Bioscience and Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Denmark

• 2010 - 2013

Master of Science in Biophysics at the Biophysics and Biomedical engineering Laboratory, Shaanxi Normal University, China

• 04/2008 - 08/2008

Technician Hubei Xingfa Chemical Group Co.Ltd, China

• 2008 - 2010

Engineer at Beijing Choice Electronic Technology Co.Ltd, China

• 2003 - 2007

Bachelor of Engineering in Automation at South-Central University for Nationalities, China

Topic of Dissertation:

The habitability of Saturn’s icy-moon Enceladus

Research Interests:

• Astrobiology-Habitability of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus

Dannenmann, M., Klenner, F., Hillier, J., Khawaja, N., Zou, Z. and Postberg, F. (2020) Analogue experiments for the detection of microorganisms on Enceladus and Europa, EPSC Abstracts Vol.14, EPSC2020-793.

Zou, Z., Postberg, F. Hillier, J. Khawaja, N., Klenner, F., Nölle, L. (2020) Compositional heterogeneity amongst salt-rich grains emitted from Enceladus' subsurface ocean. 22nd EGU General Assembly, held online 4-8 May, 2020, id. 18970.

Khawaja, N., F. Postberg, J. Hillier, F. Klenner, S. Kempf, L. Nölle, R. Reviol, Z. Zou, and R. Srama (2019), Low-mass nitrogen-, oxygen-bearing, and aromatic compounds in Enceladean ice grains, MNRAS, 489(4), 5231–5243, doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2280.

Khawaja, N., F. Postberg, J. Hillier, F. Klenner, S. Kempf, L. Nölle, R. Reviol, Z. Zou, and R. Srama (2019), Detection of low mass amines, carbonyls and aromatics from within Enceladus – suitable precursors for biologically-relevant hydrothermal synthesis, in AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, P24A-06.

Nölle, L., F. Postberg, N. Khawaja, J. Hillier, Z. Zou, S. Hsu, T. Albin, and R. Srama (2019), Chemical ‘aging’ of icy dust grains in Saturn’s E-ring, in EPSC Abstracts Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS2019-468.