Atreya is a professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Since the mid-1970, Sushil Atreya has been involved in various Solar System exploration missions of NASA, ESA, and JAXA.
[6] Atreya and colleagues made the first highly precise measurements of the primordial argon isotopic ratio on Mars using the mass spectrometer on the Curiosity Rover.
Atreya was amongst the first to discover from orbital observations the presence of methane on Mars[8] — a gas that is largely associated with life on Earth[9] — followed by precise measurements from the surface over a decade with the tunable laser spectrometer on the Curiosity Rover at Gale Crater.
Atreya's photochemical models showed how a massive Earth-like atmosphere of nitrogen could evolve on Saturn's largest moon Titan,[13] before the gas was detected on the satellite by Voyager.
Sushil Atreya received the David Bates Medal awarded by the European Geosciences Union in 2016 in recognition of his "exceptional contributions to planetary and solar system sciences".