Event Details:

About the Presentation

Sarah and Robert will discuss their work in Namibia which examines how microorganisms survive and drive ecosystems in very very dry areas. We discuss our findings and share field adventures from the last two years working in one of the driest and oldest deserts in the world.

About the Speakers

Sarah is an assistant professor at Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) and the Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University. She is a microbial and ecosystem ecologist and her lab examines how climate change affects soils, microorganisms, and agriculture. She became interested in ecology, and especially in water as a limiting resource, while teaching environmental education in Namibia, which Robert would go on to do as well. Robert is a graduate student at KBS and received his bachelor's degree at Grinnell College. He is interested in understanding how microorganisms influence global processes like climate change. For his dissertation, he studies how microbes in one of the world's driest deserts release car-bon dioxide into the air as they decompose dead plants and the potential climate change implications of this.