Research

My work sits at the intersection of microbial physiology, cellular biology, and the development of new techniques for studying microbes in their native habitats. The driving question: how do single-cell processes scale up to ecosystem-level function — and what does that look like in the microbes we haven’t yet learned to grow in the lab?

Microbes in their native habitats

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How do microbial communities assemble, interact, and function when left undisturbed in sediments, soils, and aquatic environments? Most of what we know about microbial physiology comes from a handful of well-behaved isolates. The interesting biology is in the rest.

Motility and collective behavior

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What physical and biochemical mechanisms underlie rapid swimming, swarming, and emergent group dynamics in complex fluids? Thiovulum — a large, sulfur-oxidizing bacterium — is one of the fastest swimmers known, and the communities it forms exhibit striking collective behaviors that we’re only beginning to understand.

Ultrastructure and cellular architecture

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How does sub-cellular organization — from membrane invaginations to cytoskeletal elements — enable environmental adaptation and energy conversion? Correlative electron and fluorescence microscopy lets us map structure onto function at single-cell resolution.

Advanced imaging and spectroscopy

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Tools like Raman microspectroscopy, FISH, and correlative fluorescence/electron microscopy can be pushed much further to reveal microbial chemistry and identity at the single-cell level.

Isotope tracing and metabolic flux

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What new insights into nutrient cycling and metabolic interactions emerge when we track stable isotope labels through live microbial consortia? SIP-NanoSIMS and Raman-SIP are central tools here.

Microbial dark matter

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The full extent of microbial diversity on Earth remains largely uncharacterized. A meaningful fraction of species have no cultured representative and no physiological description. The motivating questions:

• How many microbial species remain physiologically uncharacterized and what roles do they play in ecosystems?
• How can we better cultivate previously unculturable microbes?
• What can we learn about them without ever isolating them?

DIY instrumentation and open-source tools

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Custom-built devices — from handheld controllers to submersible ROVs and Raman microscopes — democratize access to advanced measurements in the field. See the Projects and Microelectronics sections for builds and code.

Data-driven modeling

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Machine learning and sparse identification methods can distill governing equations that predict microbial behavior and ecosystem feedbacks. Combining live environmental sampling, real-time telemetry, and automated data pipelines into a unified research workflow surfaces patterns that hand analysis would miss.

Field sites

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Past sampling locations include Yellowstone National Park, the Penoche Hills and Mono Lake (Agouron Geobiology course), Sippewissett salt marsh, and the UCSB lagoon system.