Craig E. Nelson

Position

Principle Investigator

Biography

I grew up in Southern California and lived in various parts of California until my late 30's when I moved with my family to Honolulu in 2013. After finishing college I worked for 5 years in agriculture, food service and medicine before getting passionate about aquatic ecosystem science and starting graduate school in 2002. Since then I've been doing field-based microbial ecology in mountain lakes, the Arctic, coral reefs and tropical rivers. I think I still remember how to pipet, but mostly am just a cheerleader these days!

Research Interests

I am interested in how microbial communities control ecosystem processes in aquatic habitats. I am particularly interested in the role of microbes in transforming the complex mixtures of organic compounds and metabolites that comprise dissolved organic matter in the ocean, rivers and lakes. I work primarily on bacterioplankton but also study the microbiomes of many different host organisms, including coral, algae, fish and invertebrates in marine habitats.

Education

BA 1998 in Biology and English at UC Berkeley, PhD 2008 in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at UCSB.