I am a post-doc working in Colleen Cavanaugh's lab at Harvard University, where we study environmental microbiology and symbiosis from the point of view of the bacterial symbiont. On this cruise, I am searching for the free-living bacterial symbiont of the giant tubeworm, Riftia pachyptila. I am continuing some experiments I started on a research cruise to 9° N in December 2002.

What questions are you trying to answer and why? Why is this research important? What are the benefits?

We are studying the symbiosis between the tubeworm Riftia pachyptila and their bacterial symbionts. While adult Riftia are dependent on their bacteria to provide all of their nutritional requirements, Riftia larvae do not contain these bacteria. This means that at some point, they have to get these bacteria from somewhere. The project I'm working on involves looking for a form of these bacterial symbionts outside of the adult tubeworms, in the water column, and on surfaces. I'm collecting water samples, natural rock and animal samples, and I'm releasing and collecting some surfaces that I've designed for collecting bacteria.

The more we understand about how modern symbionts and hosts interact, the more we can understand ancient symbioses. This includes questions about how the first eukaryotic cell formed and the evolution of multi-cellular life on Earth.

What is your background and what lured you into marine science/education?

I grew up in western Pennsylvania, about 400 miles from the ocean., but when I was in 6th grade, my school took us on a field trip to the Marine Science Consortium in Wallops Island, Virginia. That is when I first became interested in marine science.

I graduated from Boston University in 1994 with a B.A. in biology with specialization in marine science. This program included a marine science semester at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, which really solidified my interest in biological oceanography. I went on to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, and in 2000 I earned my Ph.D. in molecular biology in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Schleif. There I learned a bit about how genes work, and the molecular techniques that I now use to study deep-sea biology.