The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent for most of its history, but became officially affiliated with the University of Chicago on July 1, 2013. It also collaborates with numerous other institutions.
Frank Rattray Lillie was an American zoologist and an early pioneer of the study of embryology. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Lillie moved to the United States in 1891 to study for a summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Lillie formed a lifelong association with the laboratory, eventually rising to become its director in 1908. His efforts developed the MBL into a full-time institution.
Cornelia Maria Clapp was an American educator and zoologist, specializing in marine biology. She earned the first Ph.D. in biology awarded to a woman in the United States from Syracuse University in 1889, and she would earn a second doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1896. Clapp was the first female researcher employed at the Marine Biological Laboratory, as well as its only female trustee during the first half of the 20th century. She was rated one of the top 150 zoologists in the United States in 1903, and her name was starred in the first five editions of American Men of Science.
Colleen Marie Cavanaugh is an American academic microbiologist best known for her studies of hydrothermal vent ecosystems. As of 2002, she is the Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and is affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Cavanaugh was the first to propose that the deep-sea giant tube worm, Riftia pachyptila, obtains its food from bacteria living within its cells, an insight which she had as a graduate student at Harvard. Significantly, she made the connection that these chemoautotrophic bacteria were able to play this role through their use of chemosynthesis, the biological oxidation of inorganic compounds to synthesize organic matter from very simple carbon-containing molecules, thus allowing organisms such as the bacteria to exist in deep ocean without sunlight.
The Center for Microbial Oceanography (C-MORE) is a research and education organization established in 2006 as a National Science Foundation funded Science and Technology Center.
Edward Francis DeLong, is a marine microbiologist and professor in the Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and is considered a pioneer in the field of metagenomics. He is best known for his discovery of the bacterial use of the rhodopsin protein in converting sunlight to biochemical energy in marine microbial communities.
Dr. Mary A. Voytek is the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 2015, Voytek formed Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), a systems science initiative by NASA, to search for life on exoplanets. Voytek came to NASA from the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA, where she headed the USGS Microbiology and Molecular Ecology Laboratory from 1998 to 2009.
Alexandra (Alex) Z. Worden is a microbial ecologist and genome scientist known for her expertise in the ecology and evolution of ocean microbes and their influence on global biogeochemical cycles.
LExEN, an acronym for Life in Extreme Environments, is a research program overseen by the National Science Foundation. It was originally developed by G. Michael Purdy in 1997 as an area of research in which scientists could seek funding for activities in the polar regions. Participating were the Directorates for Biological Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Engineering, Geosciences, and the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation. The program sought to place a strong emphasis upon those life-supporting environments that exist near the extremes of planetary conditions. The study of extreme habitats, both planetary and extra-planetary, was underpinned by the idea that "deep understanding of certain earth-bound microbial systems would provide important insights into life-sustaining processes and the origin of life on our own planet, while illuminating the search for life in other planetary environments."
Katrina Jane Edwards was a pioneering geomicrobiologist known for her studies of organisms living below the ocean floor, specifically exploring the interactions between the microbes and their geological surroundings, and how global processes were influenced by these interactions. She spearheaded the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigation (C-DEBI) project at the University of Southern California, which is ongoing. Edwards also helped organize the deep biosphere research community by heading the Fe-Oxidizing Microbial Observatory Project on Loihi Seamount, and serving on several program steering committees involving ocean drilling. Edwards taught at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and later became a professor at the University of Southern California.[1][2]
Monica Riley was an American scientist who contributed to the discovery of messenger RNA in her Ph.D work with Arthur Pardee, and was later a pioneer in the exploration and computer representation of the Escherichia coli genome.
Joan V. Ruderman is an American molecular and cell biologist. She is a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and Visiting Senior Biologist at Princeton University. She has researched cell division and embryo development, and more recently the effects of, and the public understanding of, environmental estrogens and other endocrine disruptors. She was elected as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1998.
Vivian Helena Pellizari is a Brazilian Antarctic scientist known for her work on establishing Antarctic microbiology in Brazil. Pellizari is the head of Department of Oceanographic Biology at Oceanographic Institute of University of São Paulo.
Gary G. Borisy is a retired president and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In 2013, Borisy joined the Department of Microbiology at the Forsyth Institute.
Mitchell Sogin is an American microbiologist. He is a distinguished senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research investigates the evolution and diversity of single-celled organisms.
Zoe G. Cardon is an American ecosystems ecologist focused on observing and understanding ecosystem interactions in the rhizosphere. She has also played an integral role in developing systems to better study the rhizosphere without digging it up and interfering with the ecosystems using stable isotopes and mathematical modeling. Cardon is currently a senior scientist at the Marine Biology Laboratory at the Ecosystems Center and an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University. She is credited with helping to establish the National Microbiome Initiative at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington, D.C.
Abigail A. Salyers was a microbiologist who pioneered the field of human microbiome research. Her work on the bacterial phylum Bacteroidetes and its ecology led to a better understanding of antibiotic resistance and mobile genetic elements. At a time where the prevailing paradigm was focused on E. coli as a model organism, Salyers emphasized the importance of investigating the breadth of microbial diversity. She was one of the first to conceptualize the human body as a microbial ecosystem. Over the course of her 40-year career, she was presented with numerous awards for teaching and research and an honorary degree from ETH Zurich, and served as president of the American Society for Microbiology.
Kimberly B. Ritchie is an American marine biologist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Her research is focused on marine microbiology and how microbes affect animal health in hosts such as corals and sharks.
Elizabeth Kujawinski is an American oceanographer who is Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she works as Program Director of the Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet. Her research considers analytical chemistry, chemical oceanography, microbiology and microbial ecology. She is interested in what controls the composition of organic materials in aquatic systems.
