News

9/5/18 - I successfully completed a field research trip to Iceland as part of a travel grant from the American Philosophical Society/NASA Astrobiology Institute. The work was conducted in collaboration with geochemist Andri Stefansson at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, along with several grad students in the Earth Sciences department. The research aims to investigate the role of tectonic settings in influencing microbial ecosystems by comparing Icelandic hydrothermal springs to those of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Sampling in east-central Iceland and southwestern Iceland resulted in numerous very interesting samples that will be used to compare against springs in YNP.

9/3/18 - A recent proposal by myself and others in the Boyd lab (PI: Dan Colman, Co-Is Eric Boyd and Eric Dunham) was selected as part of the Census of Deep Life's Phase 14 Sequencing Program. The proposal, entitled "Differentiating subsurface- and near-surface dwelling ‘Acetothermia’ via genomic comparisons and recovery of new genomes from sediments of Great Salt Lake, Utah", will aim to compare the adaptations of an uncultivated group of microorganisms, the 'Acetothermia', towards various extreme environments and will leverage comparisons from genomic data collected from hot springs, the subsurface serpentinite-hosted environment of the Samail ophiolite in Oman, and sediments from Great Salt Lake, Utah.