Jennifer Necker

Jennifer Necker is a first year Ph.D. student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program studying chemical oceanography. She earned her B.S. in Marine Science at Eckerd College where she also worked on the microplastics quantification team. Her past research has focused on trace metal cycling in multiple marine systems. Advised by Dr. Colleen Hansel, Jennifer is … Continued

Erica Herrera

Erica is a 3rd year PhD candidate and NSF-GRFP fellow in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Before coming to WHOI, she received her BS in Animal Science from New Mexico State University and studied both Chemistry and Mathematics at the University of Texas at El Paso. Advised by Colleen Hansel, her research interests are centered around … Continued

William Pardis

William Pardis is an electrical engineer in the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department at Woods Hole Oceanographic institution. Growing up and studying electrical engineering in Montana a boat was mostly just a concept to him. Through an interest in environmental sensing, he found himself commercializing an oceanographic pH instrument with a oceanographic company in … Continued

Jeff Beeson

Jeff is the most recent principal investigator to join the NOAA PMEL Earth-Ocean Interactions group. He is an Assistant Professor (senior research) in the Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies (CIMERS) located in Newport, Oregon. Jeff received his Ph.D in marine geology and geophysics from Oregon State University in 2016. He specializes in … Continued

David Butterfield

Dave is a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, who spent his early years in Portland and has lived in Seattle since 1984. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the University of Washington in 1990. Dave is Principal Research Scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) at the … Continued

Sean McAllister

Sean McAllister is a member of the biology team from CICOES/UW and PMEL/NOAA, specializing in molecular and microbial ecology. Currently a postdoc on this expedition, Sean earned his Ph.D. in marine biosciences from the University of Delaware, studying the functional diversity and expression of genes within a group of marine iron-oxidizing Bacteria. Building on these … Continued

Bayleigh Benner

Dr. Bayleigh Benner is an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Julie Huber at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry. She is a molecular virologist and microbiologist who is interested in uncovering the viral diversity present in marine and freshwater ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on RNA … Continued

Megan Davies

Megan is a second-year MSc student studying Biology at the University of Victoria (UVic) in Dr. Amanda Bates’ lab and co-supervised by Dr. Cherisse Du Preez with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Her research focuses on identifying functional and bio-diversity patterns on seamount systems using species’ traits. She is interested in how these patterns might shift … Continued

Monika Neufeld

Monika is a M.Sc student in the Department of Oceanography at Dalhousie University, supervised by Dr. Anna Metaxas. Monika’s research focuses on characterizing non-vent animal communities at deep-sea hydrothermal vents using video annotation tools. She is interested in understanding what drives the distribution and abundance of species on inactive substrates surrounding vents. She hopes that … Continued

Marc A. Fontánez Ortiz

Marc Fontánez’s interest lies in understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of microbial diversity and dynamics that govern aquatic ecosystems. He applies molecular techniques to render possible the exploration of the regimes that may structure microbial communities throughout the ocean biosphere. This approach has been helpful for him, for example, in comparing the structure of free-living and … Continued