Michael Chen
Postdoctoral Researchers & Graduate Students
Graduate Student
DMCS
 
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Research Interests:

Broadly, I am interested in how climate change is altering marine ecosystems. In particular, I will be studying how physical and chemical parameters in the ocean affect pytoplankton community structure, seasonal timing, and photophysiology. My work will focus on the rapidly warming West Antarctic Peninsula and Southern Ocean. I hope to use a combination of field, lab, and computational methods, with a focus on bio-optics and photophysiology. I am also interested in communicating science and using science to guide environmental policy-making.

Short history:

I grew up in the concrete cornfields (no really, look it up!) of Dublin, Ohio. For college, I found my way to Western Massachusetts and studied biology at Williams College. My research there focused on open-ocean phytoplankton and how they evolved to fit their unique environments. I also spent two summers interning at Bigelow Laboratory in Maine, where I used genome sequencing to unravel the mysteries of environmental microbes. After college, I spent several years in Cambridge, MA working in an infectious disease research lab and looking for new antibiotics. Outside of work I might be running, cooking, watching Star Trek, or teaching myself how to play the viola.