2009-11-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

Anna-Louise Reysenbach (Portland State University)

Anna-Louise is a microbial ecologist whose research focuses on high temperature ecosystems. Her lab combines classical culturing techniques with genomic approaches to explore the diversity and role thermophiles play in terrestrial and deep-sea hydrothermal systems.

Margaret (Meg) Tivey (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Meg the co-chief scientist on the cruise and is a geochemist who studies the formation of seafloor hydrothermal vent deposits. Her focus on this cruise is on understanding the very early stages of chimney formation. She will be deploying arrays of temperature probes (thermocouple arrays) to record the temperature-history over time, and to "capture" very young (2-, 4-, and 20-day old) material. Anna-Louise Reysenbach's group will use the recovered material of known age and temperature to study microbial colonization in these young deposits.

Rachel Barker (University of Missouri)

Rachel is a first year graduate student in the lab of Dr. Karyn Rogers where her primary focus of study is enriching for and isolating thermophiles that use organic sulfur compounds for metabolic energy. On the cruise, she will be assisting in the processing of sulfide samples and the culturing of thermoacidophiles.

Paul Craddock (University of Chicago)

Paul is a postdoc and will be assisting Meg with the mineralogical analyses.

Jim Elkins (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Jim is a Staff Microbiologist at ORNL and works with extremophiles for both basic and applied science. He will be collecting hydrothermal vent samples for cultivation of novel Korarchaeota.

Gilbert Flores (Portland State University)

Gilbert is a PhD student in Dr. Reysenbach's lab. He is interested in the ecology of thermoacidophilic microorganisms inhabiting deep-sea sulfide chimneys. On this cruise, he will be collecting sulfide chimneys and using a variety of techniques to examine the distribution and relative abundance of a particular group of thermoacidophilic Archaea.

Robert Gibson (NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)

Rob is a postdoc in the department of Marine Organic Biogeochemistry at NIOZ. He will be analyzing the distribution of polar and complex microbial lipids in samples collected. He hopes to develop these lipids as biomarkers for exotic microbial communities and biogeochemical processes.

Luke McKay (University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill)

Luke is a second year student working with Andreas Teske in the Department of Marine Sciences. He is studying how the colorful Beggiatoa mats on the surface of Guaymas Basin sediments respond to temperature fluctuations, which serve as a rough proxy for metabolic substrate fluxes.

Enrique Morett (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)

Enrique is interested in gene expression patterns of the microbiota found in the Guaymas hot sediments.

Kristen Myers (Portland State University)

Kristen is a research technician in Dr. Reysenbach's lab. She will be assisting the team on board in many capacities including processing sulfide samples, laboratory analyses and outreach.

Gabriel Nunez-Nogueira

Gabriel's role on the cruise is to obtain samples of macrofauna with the purpose of carrying out ecotoxicological studies. He is interested in evaluating accumulation, tolerance, metal detoxification mechanisms and adaptation capacities to extreme environments.

Mircea Podar (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Mircea is interested in environmental microbiology, genomics and metagenomics. Particularly, his interests for this research cruise include the identification and characterization of novel Nanoarchaea and analysis of community structure in relationship to physical and chemical variables at the vent sites.

Jason Podrabsky (Portland State University)

Jason is a comparative physiologist interested in how animals adapt to extreme environments. He plans to investigate host - symbiont interactions through proteome analysis of Riftia tissues and blood.

Josh Steinberg (Oregon Episcopal School)

Josh is currently a senior in high school at OES in Portland, Oregon. He began working in Dr. Reysenbach's lab in the summer of 2008. He has explored the microbial diversity associated with a thermocouple array experiment from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) and is now working on a project comparing the microbial diversity between vent fields along the MAR. Josh plans to continue scientific research when he begins college next year.

Lauri Streaker

Lauri is a freelance photographer from Hood River, Oregon. Her main goal on the cruise is to document the activities of the researchers and scientists. She will also help in other outreach capacities and happily assist wherever she is needed.

Fengping Wang (Shanghai Jiaotong University)

Fengping is interested in the molecular adaption mechanisms of microorganisms in deep-sea extreme environments and the subsurface. She is also interested in methane cycling in estuarine and ocean environments. Her lab will be involved with metagenomic comparisons of vent deposit communities.

Guaymas Cruise Participants