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KATRINA
EDWARDS (2012)
Professor
Katrina Edwards is a renowned expert on the reciprocal interactions
between microbes and rocks and minerals at the ocean floor and how these
processes influence global biogeochemical processes. Dr. Edwards received
her Ph.D. in geomicrobiology from the University of Wisconsin in 1999. She
was Assistant, and then Associate, Scientist in the Department of Marine
Chemistry and Geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
from 1999 to 2006. At the University of Southern California, Dr. Edwards
was Associate Professor (2006–2009) and then Professor (2009 to present)
in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences.
Dr.
Edwards has employed a diverse array of tools ranging from geology and
geochemistry to oceanography, microbiology and molecular biology to push
forward our understanding of a globally important ecosystem that is both
remote and technically challenging to study. Her early work on the
microbiology of acid mine drainage and the discovery of unique
microorganisms capable of oxidizing iron and leaching sulfide led her to
ponder about the involvement of microbes in the weathering of rocks in the
deep sea. She has subsequently made fundamental contributions to knowledge
on their role in mineral deposition, rock alteration, iron speciation and
cycling in the oceans. She has also examined microbial population
structures and geochemistry in the deep ocean and the variation in
microbial communities in hydrothermal sulfides, in hydrothermal plumes and
in deep basalts. These studies are revealing, for the first time in the
deep sea, is a distinct biogeography among microbes that correlates with
the chemical and mineralogical nature of each of these habitats.
In
parallel with her scientific record, Dr. Edwards has taken a leadership
role in organizing the deep biosphere research community. She has served
on numerous Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Steering committees, and
initiated and led an international deep biosphere project in the mid
Atlantic. Dr. Edwards also led the US National Science
Foundation-supported Loihi Microbial Observatories program. Recently, she
took the lead on establishing a major $25 Million NSF Science and
Technology Center dedicated to the study of the Deep Biosphere of Earth,
and involving a consortia of 29 Universities and research centers; Dr.
Edwards is now Director of this project known as the Center for Dark
Energy Biosphere Investigations.
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