Dr. Julia Van Etten
Principal Investigator

Julia received her B.S. in Marine Science and Biology at University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, where she began her research career working on growth optimization of red seaweeds and then sea urchin molecular development. In the two years between college and graduate school she started Couch Microscopy, a multimedia project documenting the biodiversity of microorganisms that live around us but are rarely seen; this work continues today and has shaped her approach to research and science communication. She then did her Ph.D. at Rutgers University in Debashish Bhattacharya’s lab, where she worked on the role of horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes, and specifically as a driver of adaptive evolution in extremophilic red algae, funded by the NASA FINESST and JGI CSP programs. After graduating, Julia received the NSF PRFB fellowship and investigated DNA-transfer driven ecological relationships at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Matthew Johnson’s lab. She is excited to expand this work as an assistant professor at University of Maryland in the Department of Biology!