TITLE: Ph.D. Student
ACADEMIC INSTITUTION: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

What is your role in Extreme 2008?  
I’ve spent most of my Ph.D. dissertation studying the microbes that live in cold seeps, where methane and other chemicals come bubbling out of the seafloor at the frigid temperatures that are found in most of the deep ocean. This will be my first chance to study similar organisms at blazing hot hydrothermal vents, so I will be learning how things work on the ship, and how Alvin gathers samples in this new (to me!) environment.  

What questions are you trying to answer and why?
Hydrothermal vents result when water that has been superheated within the Earth’s crust rushes up into the ocean. The chemical reactions between oxygen-free, chemical-rich hydrothermal vent water, and oxygen-laden seawater seem to be driven by a diverse set of microorganisms. These organisms can be difficult to study since we haven’t figured out how to get most of them to grow by themselves in a test tube.  So we have to study them using only their DNA and RNA.  

By enriching for particular types of microorganisms, I might have more of a chance of determining how particular DNA and RNA sequences relate to a microbe’s function in the environment.

What will you be doing during the cruise -- with Alvin and in the lab?
I will be studying these methane microbes in heated sediment, as well as deploying an instrument that will allow microbes to grow on a glass slide. This instrument will sit at the seafloor for a few weeks until it is retrieved by members of the next cruise.

Why is this research important? What are the benefits?
Methane is an important driver for Earth’s climate. It is also possible that methane-producing microbes were one of the first life forms on Earth. We only know the tip of the iceberg about these microbes that were so instrumental in setting Earth’s climate and maintaining it today.  If we know more about how these organisms function, this might give us insight into natural geological climate feedbacks and the evolution of life.

What's your background, and what lured you into marine science/education?
I’m from a small coastal town in eastern North Carolina, where I spent a lot of time peering into oceanic waters on lazy Sunday afternoons wondering what was in there.  When I learned that everything I was looking at was inundated with invisible helpful microbes, I knew I had to combine these two interests for my career.  My undergraduate degree is in biochemistry from Swarthmore College, and I have a master's degree in marine sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.