Microbial Ecosystems Science

Joshua Cooper (Ph.D. Student)

Mr. Diatom ! Joshua has already made a name for himself as an authority in taxonomic identification of diatoms in freshwater systems. His interests include plankton and stream ecology as well as questions relating to protist evolution. Josh is currently working on a project that seeks to understand transcriptomic responses of toxic dinoflagellate algae in response to nutrient stress.

Wilford B. Boling (M.S. Student)

Wilford (Blake) is studying N uptake into pelagic bacteria in coastal marine systems via 15N stable isotope probing. He has also been investigaing the feeding of calanoid copepods via molecular technqiues.

Rebekah Shaw (undergraduate)

Rebekah has just joined the lab. She will be working on the characterization of proteins involved N metabolism in marine bacteria. Welcome to the lab !

Declan (future microbial ecologist)

Christopher Marks (Ph.D. Student)

a.k.a. 'That Guy'. Christopher is Dr. Suflita's student but he has significantly contributed to efforts in my lab. He has been part of the molecular characterization of methanogens associated with coal bed methane in the San Juan Basin and shares co-authorship on this manuscript !

Brian H. Harriman (undergraduate)

Brian conducted physiological experiments aimed at maximizing the production of lipid from microalgal biomass. He also developed a method for the rapid, simple, and colorimetric detection of lipids from algae (The Journal of Microbiological Methods. Vol. 80, p. 262-266). He is currently applying to return to our department as a Ph.D. student. We'll be lucky to have him !

Shane Pruitt (undergraduate)

Shane was working on the metagenomic characterization of an anaerobic paraffin-degrading consortium. He also ran RT-PCR experiment on a series of genes involved in anaerobic alkane metabolism. Great work !

Mary B. Moon (undergraduate)

Mary's project was to characterize microbial communities affected by organic nitrogen contained in sewage treatment plant efluent.