2019 Simons Early Career Investigators in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution Announced

The Simons Foundation has named nine scientists as 2019 Simons Early Career Investigators in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution. The three-year awards are intended to help launch the careers of outstanding investigators in this area. The awardees are:

Frank Aylward of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who will study the tempo and mode of prokaryotic genome evolution in the ocean.

Andrew Babbin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who will study the microbe’s perspective on the marine nitrogen budget.

Roxanne Beinart of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, who will study the patterns of specificity and maintenance in microbe-microbe partnerships.

Alexander Bradley of the Washington University in St. Louis, who will investigate the biogeochemical consequences of metabolic heterogeneity in marine microbial carbon degradation.

Randelle Bundy of the University of Washington, who will investigate the fundamental role of heterotrophic bacteria in the global iron cycle.

Kristen Hunter-Cevera, a Hibbitt Early Career Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, who will analyze the seasonal microdiversity patterns of coastal Synechococcus.

William Leavitt of Dartmouth College, who will investigate the molecular fingerprinting of microbial surface ocean methane.

Jeffrey Morris of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who will analyze the coevolution of bacteria and algae in our changing oceans.

Xinning Zhang of Princeton University, who will study the physiological diversity and environmental sensitivities of benthic marine nitrogen fixation.