MBL Friday Evening Lecture Series: “Going Where The Wild Things Are: Ocean Microbes, Their Interactions, and Ecosystem Consequences” – Alexandra Worden, MBL & University of Chicago

The oceans are teeming with life forms that are invisible to the naked eye – a myriad of microbes – some more like plants and even some quite related to humans! These organisms are responsible for many different ecosystem roles ranging from photosynthesis that underpins ocean food chains and generates oxygen, to how carbon is moved from sunlit surface waters into the abyss—an important factor for climate stability. There are challenges inherent to exploring these communities and technological innovations that are essential for overcoming those challenges. Here, we will discuss what we are learning about key marine microbes, how they interact, and how this new knowledge reshapes the way we think about ocean.

Alexandra Worden is a Senior Scientist at the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution and a Professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Worden’s research focuses on the uptake and fate of carbon in the oceans critical processes for maintaining the biosphere in which we live. Her current research focuses on photosynthetic microorganisms, integrating across genomics, evolutionary biology, and ecology to explore microbial roles in carbon dioxide uptake and fate. Worden and her group develop methods and technologies for sea-going studies of protists (unicellular eukaryotes) and their viruses, and for quantifying their contributions to global primary production, activities in the deep sea, and trajectories in future oceans. In addition to pioneering methods for targeting uncultivated microbes in the ocean, alongside their activities and interactions, her lab has focused on developing methods for investigating environmentally relevant algae under climate change simulations and methods for genetic manipulation of these species. In her next undertakings, Worden aims to initiate cohort-based educational programs that broaden the representation of individuals from diverse backgrounds in the sciences.

Worden holds a BA in History from Wellesley College with a concentration in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT. She performed her PhD at the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology, where she had a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellowship. Prior to coming to the MBL, she founded the Ocean EcoSystems Biology Unit in Kiel, Germany as Professor and Unit Head. Among other honors, she is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, a Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, an Associate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.