* – Indicates participant in the chief scientist training program
** – Indicates scientific staff or postdoctoral researcher
*** – Indicates Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI
Astrid Leitner*
Affiliation: Oregon State University
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: I am an ecological oceanographer whose research interests lie at the intersection of ecology with biological and physical oceanography, as well as marine geology. I am interested in how abrupt and complex bathymetry including banks, seamounts, island slopes, canyons, and steep continental shelves influence the spatial distribution and behaviors of predators and their prey in the ocean by modifying the physical and biological environment, especially in the still poorly understood deep sea. These high-relief areas are hotspots of human activity such as fishing, mining, and tourism. I am interested in contributing to the understanding and mitigation of anthropogenic impacts to the ocean especially as humanity grapples with the climate crisis and the changing ocean. My research program includes a focus on deep-sea mining, trying to understand the role of abrupt bathymetries in the biogeography and ecology of nodule mining regions. I utilize a broad range of technologies including remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles, a variety of underwater camera systems, bioacoustics technologies, multibeam sonar for seafloor mapping, acoustic doppler current profilers, and direct fishing techniques. Abrupt topographies juxtapose distinct habitats, each with different communities, creating a unique oceanic front where the deep and shallow, the coastal and the offshore, and the benthic and the pelagic all come together with still largely unexplored ecological consequences. @AstridBLeitner
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am excited to trial a newly built towed deep water pelagic camera system, the PICA (Pelagic Instrumented Camera Array). This will be the first time that we get to take this instrument out to sea. The hope with this instrument is that it will be a digital fishing net, allowing us to document the abundance and species composition in the deep water column while simultaneously getting crucial environmental data from the onboard sensors (CTD, Oxygen, Turbidity, and more) with minimal environmental impact.
Fun fact: Before graduate school I was a sponsored, competitive windsurfer. While I still enjoy windsurfing in my time off, I am no longer competing and just go out to enjoy the ocean.
Xuefeng (Nick) Peng*
Affiliation: University of South Carolina
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: I am a microbial biogeochemist with a particular interest in studying the impact of fungi on carbon and nitrogen cycling in marine environments. I work in the open ocean where fungi are a undersampled minority group of the microbial community but potentially have disproportionally large impact on the marine food web. I also work in salt marsh sediments where fungi contribute to the production of nitrous oxide and the deconstruction of lignocellulose before its burial and export to the ocean. I combine process rate measurements withmolecular, bioinformatic, and microbiological techniques to investigate the roles fungi, as well as other microorganisms, play in these dynamic systems.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? As a student, I learned about the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) by reading many seminal studies performed there. As a professor, introducing the NPSG is always a highlight in both the undergraduate introductory marine science course and graduate chemical oceanography course I teach. Therefore, it is very exciting to visit the NPSG in person for the first time. I also very much look forward to working with colleagues from diverse backgrounds during this chief scientist training cruise.
Fun fact: I did not learn how to swim until I was in graduate school – to prepare for my first research cruise. However, I never swam during anyresearch cruises. I got SCUBA certified when I was a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara, but I never dived there again because the water was too cold for me.
Mariana Bernardi Bif*
Affiliation:Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute/University of Miami
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: My current research applies biogeochemical-float (BGC-float) data combined with cruise data to estimate ocean productivity and carbon export, a process that ultimately regulates the Earth’s climate. Among a few projects, I currently investigate the impact of marine heatwaves on the ecosystem by combining data from BGC-floats, genetics and phytoplankton pigments. I am also developing new tools to reprocess data from the float’s nitrate sensor, with the ability to detect nitrite and thiosulfate to illuminate the nitrogen and sulfur cycles in oxygen-deficient zones. Besides data analysis, I am responsible for chemical sensor calibration and optimization from each float before they are sent out to research cruises to be deployed all over the world through GO-BGC (https://www.go-bgc.org) and SOCCOM (https://soccom.princeton.edu) NSF-funded programs.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I recently accepted a new position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Miami, and foresee many opportunities to coordinate long research cruises over the next years. This training is the perfect opportunity to learn the most about how to be a Chief Scientist – from UNOLS ship time requests to crew and sampling coordination. I am also happy to be back at sea!
Fun fact: I am proud of my Brazilian heritage, and BBQs at my house became famous among friends since moving to the U.S. about a decade ago (unarguably, picanha is the world’s best meat cut). I will never -ever- say no to a chat and a cup of coffee if you drop by my office. I am a movie fan, especially horror and deep dramas, and watched almost every available movie on the NOAA Ship R. Brown during a 3-month cruise.
Benedict Borer*
Affiliation: MIT / Rutgers
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: As a microbial biogeochemist, I study how microbes, the smallest organisms on this planet, drive global biogeochemical cycles and modulate anthropogenic emissions and pollution. Across biomes, microbial cells are not homogeneously distributed but localized in densely populated hotspots with highly elevated metabolic activity such as marine particles. Using experimental (microfluidics, imaging, stable isotopes) and mathematical approaches, I probe microbial life and dynamics within individual hotspots to predict how they collectively impact global-scale processes.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am excited about this cruise because many researchers with different expertise come together to study the sameecosystem from multiple angles. It is a unique opportunity not only to learn how to plan and carry out successful research cruises but also to learn from all participants about their research approaches and broaden my horizons.
Fun fact: I was allowed to fly a plane before driving a car.
Noelle Held*
Affiliation: University of Southern California
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: My research addresses how microbial decision-making imprints on ocean biogeochemical cycles. I build from a tradition in oceanography that uses measured concentrations of nutrient and non-nutrient chemicals to infer microbial activity. In my research I flip the question, asking how the physiology and molecular biology of microbial cells can be used to understand the chemical properties of the sea. I am specialized in environmental proteomics and couple approaches in quantitative biology, molecular biology, and systems biology to traditional oceanographic measurements. On this cruise, I will collect samples to address the question of whether marine microbes experience nutrient limitation in a continuous (as opposed to discrete) way, piloting a new approach for nutrient incubation experiments. I will also collect multi-omic samples over depth, space, and time to establish changes in microbial community structure and function, and develop an organism-resolved inventory of measured nitrogen fixation rates (by quantifying nitrogenase enzymes from various nitrogen fixers). And of course, I will be hunting for Trichodesmium samples and isolates to add to my collection!
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I always feel inspired and hopeful when I go to sea – it’s great motivation for long hours in the lab and at the laptop. I haven’t been to sea since 2018, so I am overdue! I am excited for the cool science this unique group will put together. It is really cool to spend time with other people in similar career stages with similar goals.
Fun fact: I’ve been known to start dance parties during especially long sampling nights. 🪩 🕺💃
Michael Carlson*
Affiliation: California State University Long Beach
Position: Assistant Professor
Research description: My research focuses on uncovering how and why marine microbes die and the consequences for ocean ecosystems. I am particularly interested in the role that viruses, the most abundant mortality agents in the oceans, play in microbial death. I seek to understand the ‘viral load’ of phytoplankton communities by using genome-informed molecular approaches to map virus abundances and infection levels in the environment. I also aim to understand the mechanisms that microbes wield to defend themselves against abundant, coexisting viruses. Ultimately, I hope to integrate a mechanistic understanding of microbe-virus interactions with ecological patterns in the present oceans in order to determine how such interactions may influence microbial communities and ocean chemistry in future oceans.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am always excited to go to sea both for the opportunity sample an ever-changing ocean that always seems to have new and exciting stories to uncover and for the experience of being on the water itself. This cruise is unique because it brings together a group of scientists at similar career stages, and I’m looking forward to learning from their work and forming productive collaborations.
Fun fact: I double-majored in history and biology in college, where my research in both fields was ocean-themed. My history thesis explored microhistories and legal trials of Atlantic pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries while my biology thesis focused human-associated viruses as markers of anthropogenic impact on coral reefs.
Shiri Graff van Creveld*
Affiliation: University of Washington 
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research description: My research focus on the molecular mechanisms and the ecological implications of interactions between marine microbial autotrophs (phytoplankton) and heterotrophs (bacteria) in the Ocean. There is currently a huge gap between the model organism that are used for mechanistic studies in the lab, and the natural complex communities of the oligotrophic Pacific Ocean. To bridge this gap and understand phytoplankton-bacteria interactions in the Pacific, I aim to study these interactions in the lab. Recently, I isolated phytoplankton and their associated beneficial or pathogenic bacteria, and I will continue to do so on this cruise.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I want to learn about the ‘backstage’ of research cruises. I am also excited about the collaborative science that we are all planning together, and I hope that we will continue these collaborations after this cruise, through our future careers.
Fun fact: I grew up sailing in the warm, blue, oligotrophic waters of the East Mediterranean Sea. Surprisingly, it is similar to the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, where this cruise will take place.
The child who once sailed the Mediterranean could never have imagined that one day, this would be my career.
Sasha Kramer*
Affiliation: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Position: Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
Research description: My research aims to describe global surface ocean phytoplankton community composition with a combination of in-water data and remote sensing measurements. I use tools like phytoplankton pigments, optical proxies, molecular methods, and cell imaging to characterize phytoplankton diversity in the surface ocean, and then extend those measurements into the deep sea to consider the implications of changing surface ocean phytoplankton community composition for carbon export flux.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I’m excited to collect more paired measurements of remote sensing reflectance, surface phytoplankton communities, and sinking carbon in sediment traps. NASA’s new Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite and its Ocean Color Instrument will be collecting data while we’re sampling, which will provide even more context for the in situ samples I hope to collect. Finally, while I’ve been fortunate to participate in a few different research cruises at higher latitudes, I have never been to sea in the tropics! I’m also excited to meet everyone in person and do some science together.
Fun fact: If I wasn’t an oceanographer, I would probably either own a cupcake bakery or be a romance novelist.
Nick Baetge*
Affiliation: Oregon State University
Position: National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
Research description: My research has been dedicated to understanding the role of microorganisms in the cycling of carbon and energy within ocean ecosystems, particularly in the context of ongoing climate change. I am especially interested in the responses of marine plankton to different types of fire ash and the consequences of ash deposition on the ocean. I use biogeochemical, genomic, bio-optical, and remote sensing approaches to study ecological connections between different microbial groups and their changing environments.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? Research cruises are such unique opportunities to foster collaborations and friendships. I’ve always disembarked research vessels with an expanded community and perspective, having learned from my fellow shipmates’ interests, how they approach their challenges and questions, and from the observations they make. I am really excited to work with and learn from this diverse group of scientists and leaders! I am also excited to collect samples and test methods to characterize the lipid, protein, and carbohydrate content of plankton communities as well run experiments that explore the impacts of atmospheric deposition of fire ash in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
Fun fact: Outside of the lab or office, you’ll likely find me with my dog, outside, having coffee, eating, playing
soccer, reading, snacking, watercoloring, or writing bad poems.
Katelyn Schockman*
Affiliation: University of Miami/NOAA AOML
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research description: My research focuses on the inorganic carbon system in seawater, where I am currently working to produce seawater reference materials for high-quality measurement analysis. I also work on characterizing the chemical composition of seawater to improve projections of change in the ocean, such as ocean acidification related to carbon emissions.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I’m looking forward to experiencing a collaborative environment of both chemists and biologists, and learning about new research techniques at sea. I am also excited to learn how to lead a cruise from start to finish.
Fun fact: I love running and being outdoors, and just recently spent four days hiking the Inca Trail!
Nicole Martin*
Affiliation: University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research description: I am broadly interested in how microbial communities determine the nutrient biochemistry of the surface ocean, and in turn, how nutrient availability shapes microbial physiology and community structure. I am currently using targeted proteomics techniques to quantify proteins involved in nutrient acquisition of multiple limiting nutrients by Prochlorococcus.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am excited to go on this cruise to spend time with a group of enthusiastic early career scientists 🙂 I love seeing the research techniques of other scientists and hearing about their work. Field measurements of uptake rates and nutrient transporter abundance at Station ALOHA will help me put my laboratory culture work into context. These first measurements will also help me refine ideas for ongoing projects at Station ALOHA.
Fun fact: All the cruises I have been on went to the same place, the ETNP ODZ. I am very excited to finally go somewhere new. I am also secretly excited to leave my kids on land – please don’t tell them.
Andrew Hirzel*
Affiliation: University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research description: I am a plankton ecologist interested in food web dynamics and biophysical interactions. My work focuses on using multiple imaging systems (e.g., Video Plankton Recorder, pictured; Imaging Flow CytoBot) to quantify a broad range of size classes (microns – cm) while also measuring physical parameters.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? This cruise is a fantastic opportunity for me to work with other dedicated early career scientists while learning how to organize a cruise!
Fun fact: I like to go hiking most weekends!
Charles Addey*
Affiliation: University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Position: Graduate Student
Research description: My research focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which physical and biological processes control the variability of biogeochemical properties in the North Pacific Ocean in space and time using biogeochemical Argo floats and shipboard data. The colocation of the North Pacific Subtropical and Central Mode Water formation regions and strong CO2 and O2 uptake make it interesting to see the role of Mode Waters in transporting biogeochemical tracers (carbon, oxygen, nitrate) from the surface to the ocean interior.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? This cruise aligns perfectly with my career goal of someday leading research cruises focused on understanding ocean biogeochemical dynamics. The hands-on experience, networking and collaboration gained will be invaluable, equipping me with the practical skills and expertise necessary to lead successful oceanographic expeditions.
Fun fact: I take pride in cooking the Nigerian Jollof, which is a classic and must-try! I enjoy playing soccer and I am a huge Afrobeats fan. I received the notification of my US permanent residency approval on the very same day I received the notice about this NSF-sponsored training cruise opportunity. Can you imagine my excitement? It was a serendipitous alignment, as this status was crucial for my eligibility to participate in this training cruise.
Matthew Church***
Affiliation: University of Montana, Flathead Lake Biological Station
Position: Associate Professor
Research description: I am a microbial ecologist and biogeochemist interested in how microbial metabolic activities catalyze the cycling of carbon and nutrients. I am particularly interested in microorganisms that catalyze key processes in the nitrogen cycle.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am excited to co-lead this cruise because I enjoy developing collaborations and working with new people. I am also excited about the new tools and approaches the cruise participants are bringing to improve understanding of biogeochemistry at Station ALOHA .
Fun fact: I live in the mountains of Montana.
Lauren Manck**
Affiliation: University of Montana, Flathead Lake Biological Station
Position: Postdoctoral Associate
Research description: My research interests focus on the intersection of molecular biology and biogeochemistry with the goal of understanding how the bioavailability of trace metals and other nutrients to marine microbes shapes elemental cycling in the marine environment. I enjoy working with a functional genomics approach that combines ‘omic, molecular, and analytical techniques in a quantitative manner. For this cruise, I’m excited to be participating in experiments that will examine how different functional groups of microbes living in the dimly lit region of the water column compete for scarce nutrients in the oligotrophic environment of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? I am excited to work with and get to know all of the early career participants in this cruise – for the opportunity to learn from an amazing group of scientists and to see how our collective expertise comes together to further our understanding of the oligotrophic ocean.
Fun fact: I enjoy swimming, cycling, and running in the mountains of Montana and will be competing in my first triathlon this fall.
Blake Watkins**
Affiliation: University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Position: Marine Engineer
Research description: As a marine engineer, I am responsible for the design, assembly, deployment and recovery of all free-floating arrays on this cruise. This includes an array designed for at sea incubation of samples to measure the rate of primary productivity and nitrogen fixation as well as a sediment trap to collect sinking particles over the course of the cruise. I will also be training cruise participants on the safe deployment and recovery procedures for arrays and instrumentation.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? Training scientists to conduct safe back-deck operations at sea is a part of the job I really enjoy.
Fun fact: I once held the world record for Ocyurus chrysurus, while fishing a secret spot in the Atlantic Ocean.
Angelicque White***
Affiliation: University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Position: Professor
Research description: As a microbial ecologist, my research has focused on the role of microbes in defining the function of ocean ecosystems and how this function may change in response to environmental pressures. I use a range of tools spanning bio-optics, imaging flow cytometry, and classical measures of elemental stocks and rates to understand the linkages between microbial diversity and production.
Why am I excited about this research cruise? As the saying goes: science is a team sport! I am excited to see this team of enthusiastic and bright young scientists learn more about the oligotrophic ocean, learn how to plan and work together, and collectively expand their research horizons.
Fun fact: I played basketball in college and was an English major before choosing science.