Darlene Sze Shien Lim is a NASA geobiologist and exobiologist who prepares astronauts for scientific exploration of the Moon, Deep Space and Mars.

[2] Her expertise involves Mars human analog missions, in which extreme landscapes like volcanoes and Arctic deserts serve as physical or operational substitutes for various planetary bodies.

[21] Lim founded the Haven House Family Shelter STEM Explorer's Speaker series, which enabled NASA and academic researchers to conduct education and outreach programs with shelter-based children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[29][32] By studying extreme habitats on earth, researchers like Lim hope to gain insights into conditions that human explorers might face on Mars or other planets.

[36] In 2004, Lim established the Pavilion Lake Research Project in British Columbia, Canada, to study chemical and biological characteristics of microbial geologic formations underwater.

She extrapolates from limnological and paleolimnological investigations of bodies of water in the Canadian High Arctic to Holocene climate change and to potential paleolake regions on the surface of Mars.

[37] In a 2017 interview, newly minted astronaut Zena Cardman specifically credited Lim, who gave her an opportunity to work at Pavilion Lake, with sparking her interest in NASA exobiology projects.

[42][43] This work examines science related to future robotic exploration of Europa and Enceladus, two Solar System moons with potentially habitable environments.