2021 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series - Professor Kristen M. DeAngelis

"Healthy Soils: Our Hope For a Warming World"
Professor Kristen M. DeAngelis: Department of Microbiology

Climate change is the most important problem facing people today, and an important solution lies hidden in plain sight: soil. Soils are microbial super-organisms, and in this lecture, Dr. DeAngelis will give listeners a greater depth of appreciation for soil, as well as the means to foster its stewardship through composting, planting, and support for sustainable agriculture. 

Dr. DeAngelis leads a team of researchers who integrate microbial, biochemical, and bioinformatics tools to understand how soils form and degrade due to climate change. Her lab research began with a long-term field manipulation experiment, in which a forest field site has been exposed to warming for 30 years, allowing a peek into a future of climate change. Her current work employs model soils, a culture collection of thousands of strains, and a suite of computational tools to clarify the role of microbial diversity and bacterial activity in soil health and carbon storage.