Matt Schrenk, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Ph.D, University of Washington- Oceanography, 2005
B.Sc., University of Wisconsin- Geology & Geophysics, South Asian Studies, 1998
I am an Associate Professor jointly appointed between the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor of Microbiology at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. Prior to that I was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. I completed my Ph.D. in Oceanography at the University of Washington in 2005, following an undergraduate dual major in Geology & Geophysics and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin.
Through these various experiences I have developed a strong interest in combining geological and microbiological perspectives through the emerging field of Geomicrobiology. I have studied all kinds of extremophiles including those that love acid and alkaline solutions, high pressures, and high temperatures. Microbial interactions with the environment in these systems have important influences on geochemical cycles and climate on Earth, as well as contemporary processes related to anthropogenic disturbances. They also impact the potential for life to exist on other planets and moons and the emergence of life on early Earth. In addition to Michigan, we conduct field work in a number of locales around the world including the middle of the ocean, serpentinites in Costa Rica, California, Newfoundland, and Italy, and volcanoes in Central and South America.
Current Graduate Students
Osama Alian
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
Osama joined the lab in Fall 2018 and promptly participated in a oceanographic research expedition to the Lost City Hydrothermal Field near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. He is studying the ecology of microbial communities within the walls of carbonate hydrothermal chimneys using observational approaches, coupling microbiology and geochemistry, experimental approaches using gradients in the lab, and modeling approaches incorporating diffusion and reaction. He is passionate about all things Astrobiology!
Nicole Smith
Graduate Research Assistant
Nicole is an Environmental Biology/Microbiology major, minoring in Spanish. She is passionate about understanding the influence of anthropogenic pollutants and climate change on earth’s oceans and other bodies of water. She is currently working on a combined Bachelors/master's project involving microbial communities within Saginaw Bay surface water in relation to septic-sourced microplastics. Her previous project as a Professorial Assistant in Schrenk Labs studied the impact of hydrogen gas produced from the radiolysis of water and serpentinization on the microbial abundance and community structure within the subsurface biosphere.
Sarah Gonzalez-Henao
Graduate Research Assistant
Sarah is a dual PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Microbiology and
Molecular Genetics departments. She is interested in Astrobiology, extremophiles, in
how these microorganisms are able to survive in extreme conditions and their
biotechnology applications. Currently, she is studying biofilms from Deep Sea
hydrothermal vent microorganisms.
Katie Quinlan
Graduate Research Assistant
Katie is an Environmental Geosciences Master’s student studying microbes in Michigan
groundwater. Her research focuses on microbial communities and their relationship to the
geochemistry of the Glacial Drift, Saginaw, and Marshall aquifers. Her goal is to map the redox
geochemistry of groundwater using microbial metabolisms
Current Undergraduates
Ella Cardoza
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Ella is an Integrative Biology major minoring in Environment and Sustainability Studies. She is working on an independent project funded by Michigan Space Grant Consortium, a NASA funded seed grant for undergraduate faculty-run fellowships. Her project focuses on studying a specific sulfate-reducing bacterium from the East Pacific Rise hydrothermal vent system and understanding how it's high pressure environment effects it. The goal of her research is to identify metabolites that the bacterium releases into it's environment and apply that knowledge to icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
Césarine Graham
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Césarine is an Astrophysics major and Mathematics minor conducting an independent study project rendering microbial habitability models via Python. She is investigating several species of Desulfovibrio both in recent publications as well as through wet lab work. She is also working with the MSU's HPCC to analyze data sequences.
Carol (Mio) Hogan
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Mio is an undergraduate student majoring in Environmental Biology/ Microbiology. She is currently studying bacteria that live in groundwater. She has been collecting groundwater samples around Michigan that have different water age, chemistry, and geological conditions. She loves observing microbes under the microscope, and she has been passionate about it since she was 10. She is also studying GIS and music.
Jocelyn Miranda
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jocelyn is an undergraduate student majoring in Psychology. She is interested in genomics and has been culturing bacteria from groundwater samples that she has helped collect throughout Michigan, in efforts to extract and sequence its DNA in order to identify the bacteria living in our wells and learn more about its properties.
Alexandra Grabowski
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Alexandra is an undergraduate student in the Lyman Briggs college majoring in molecular genomics and genetics and geological sciences. She is currently bioprospecting for Sulfurovum from different deep sea vent samples. She is interested in astrobiology, origin and early evolution of life, and geo-bio chemical relations.
Lab Alumni
Postdoctoral Researchers
William Brazelton
NASA Astrobiology Institute Postdoctoral Fellow
Currently: Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Utah
Melitza Crespo-Medina
Deep Carbon Observatory Postdoctoral Fellow
Currently: Investigadora, CECIA, Puerto Rico
Dani Morgan-Smith
C-DEBI Postdoctoral Fellow, 2012-2015
Lauren M. Seyler
Deep Carbon Observatory Postdoctoral Fellow, 2015-2017
Currently: Assistant Professor, Stockton University
Seyler Lab website
Graduate Students
Maria Berry
M.Sc./B.Sc., Microbiology, 2022
ThesisExamining Genetic Signals of Potential Anthropogenic Contamination in Groundwater Microbial Communities from the Grand Traverse Bay Watershed
Heather Blumenfeld
M.Sc., Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, 2011
East Carolina University
Thesis: Microbial Carbon Assimilation with the Walls of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Chimneys
Crystal George
M.Sc., Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, 2014
East Carolina University
Thesis: Physiological Studies of Alkaliphilic Anaerobic Organotrophs in a Serpentinizing Subsurface Habitat
Alyssa Kloysuntia
M.Sc., Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, 2014
East Carolina University
Thesis: Physiological and Phylogenetic Studies of the Biogeography of Alkaliphilic Heterotrophic Bacteria from Serpentinizing Habitats
Heather A. Miller
M.Sc., Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, 2021
Thesis: Biogeochemistry of Environmental Gradients in Serpentinization-Influenced Groundwater at the Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory, California
Lindsay I. Putman
Ph.D. Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Earth and Environmental Sciences (Dual Major), 2021
Thesis: