Antarctic Biology Training
Participants
Ewa Poniecka
I am fascinated by the microbial world of ice. I am looking at glacier surfaces really really closely, studying how microorganisms are able to survive there and how they influence melting of glaciers. I hope to share my excitement with you!
Twitter: Life_in_ice
Mridul K Thomas
I'm a biologist from India, now living in Denmark. I study algae (basically pond scum) that live in lakes and oceans around the world. They may look gross when there’s a lot of them, but these algae are important – they pull out as much carbon dioxide from the air as all plants put together. So you might say that they do as much as every tree, shrub and blade of grass put together.
I'm trying to understand how these algae will change when the environment changes. The seas are warming and getting more acidic, and this means that some algae will do better and some worse. When that happens, the amount of carbon dioxide they take out of the atmosphere may change. If we want to know what the earth will be like in the future, we really need to know what will happen to these microscopic algae.
Chelsea Chisholm
I'm an ecosystem ecologist who is mostly interested in how climate change might affect how the earth 'breathes'. I work mainly in arctic areas, like the furthest island north in Canada, and high elevation areas, like the Tibetan Plateau and mountains in Switzerland and Sweden. I am originally from northern Canada and have been living in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Switzerland for the past five years. And yes, I say eh a lot.
Kate Craft
I'm a planetary scientist interested in investigating how biology
moves through and lives in ice above water bodies such as the ice
covered lakes and sea ice in Antarctica. I would love to apply this
information to strategizing on how best to search for life in other
ocean worlds, including Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has an icy
crust overlying a global, salt-water ocean.
Mark Neveu
I study other planets, and I hope to find life beyond Earth. This science is called "astrobiology", the study of the origins, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. Specifically, I seek to understand if oceans below the surface of icy worlds in the solar system harbor life by studying their physics and chemistry, through laboratory and field studies of similar places on Earth like Antarctica, and by developing future space missions to explore these ocean worlds.
Website: marcneveu.wordpress.com
James Bradley
My main research interests are focussed on life and biogeochemistry of the most remote and extreme environments on Earth, including deep ocean sediments, the Arctic, and the Antarctic. I am also interested in the effect of global climate change in these regions.
