Congrats to Moses for best poster at 2024 Crossroads!!!

I’m so psyched to share that Moses Jatta won the best Master’s presentation at the 2024 Indiana University Crossroads Conference for his poster titled “Tracing microbial footprints in Greenland’s subglacial Naled ice meltwater: an isotopic perspective” !

Let’s gooo Moses!!!

Check out the announcement below. Scroll to the bottom for the list of presentation winners. https://sigmagamma.so.indiana.edu/crossroads/presentations/index.html

AGU Bridge Program

I am so excited to share the news that our department is now part of the American Geophysical Union’s Bridge Program! This is a tribute to our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and would not be possible without the exceptional leadership of our Department Chair, Dr. Kathy Licht. Read more here!

New NASA funding!

We were funded by NASA to study how natural populations viruses control photosynthetic sulfur bacteria. Research shows that bacteria in seawater or corals are strongly influenced by viruses. We think that the blooms of purple bacteria in anoxic lakes may also be influenced by viral communities. If correct, this would revolutionize our understanding of the conditions that promote or prevent microbial blooms. To date, most of the controls have thought to been sunlight and sulfide; however, viruses may be the hidden figures behind the persistence and activity of photosynthetic bacteria.

This project is with: Alice Bosco Santos (University of Lausanne), Cynthia Silveira (U Miami), Joe Werne (U Pittsburgh) and Molly O’Beirne (U Pittsburgh)

More about NASA Exobiology here

Welcome ACS Project SEED interns

Bawi Sung and Nahum Gerezgher are both American Chemical Society Project SEED interns in our lab this summer. Bawi is studying Ordovician carbonates and Nahum is studying iron chemistry of a northern Indiana lake. Both are doing an awesome job.

Bawi Sung (foreground) and Nahum Gerezgher (background) homogenizing samples.