Current Research
Exploring how life adapts to extreme and dynamic environments on Earth and beyond.
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High-Pressure Evolution of Microbial Life
Project 1
My research explores the limits of life under extreme hydrostatic pressure using adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE). I am evolving Shewanella oneidensis, a model bacterium, to grow at pressures exceeding 150 MPa, conditions analogous to those found in subsurface oceans on icy worlds such as Titan.
By tracking genetic, metabolic, and structural changes across evolutionary time, this work reveals how biological systems respond to sustained pressure stress rather than short-term exposure. These insights help define the boundaries of habitability and provide experimentally grounded targets for biosignature detection in extraterrestrial environments.
Defining the limits of life under extreme pressure.
Shewanella oneidensis cells imaged using DAPI stain during high-pressure cultivation.
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I investigate how microbial communities respond to rapid environmental fluctuations using hydrothermal systems in Yellowstone National Park as natural analogs. These environments undergo cyclical “on/off” activity, producing abrupt shifts in temperature, redox chemistry, and fluid flow over short timescales. My work combines metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to examine how community composition and metabolic function change across these transitions.
This project aims to determine whether microbial communities maintain functional stability despite taxonomic turnover, and whether community-level interactions enhance resilience under repeated environmental stress. By linking environmental dynamics to shifts in gene expression and metabolic potential, this research provides insight into how life persists in unstable systems and informs models of habitability on planets and moons where conditions fluctuate.
Microbial Communities in Dynamic Hydrothermal Systems
Project 2
Understanding how life adapts to environmental fluctuation.
Two hot springs in Yellowstone National Park that have timed periods of geysing affecting the microbial communities in the outflow channels
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