CURRENT

Abigail Johnson

AbigailJohnson@uga.edu

My name is Abigail Johnson. I received my BS in Biology in 2014 from TAMU-CC where I studied the effects of pressure, temperature, and salinity on deep-sea bacteria, the effects of oil spills on Antarctic benthic macrofauna, as well as the effects of climate change on the Common Sunflower. I became very interested in microbe-rock interactions and, in 2017, I received my MS from URI’s Environmental and Earth Science program under Dr. Dawn Cardace. There, I mapped microbial debris in serpentinization-related lithologies using a new method involving micro-FTIR. Continuing my passion for interdisciplinary research and method development, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in the Ocean Science and Engineering Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech as part of the inaugural cohort. I received my Ph.D. in Dr. Jennifer Glass’ lab in 2022. During my Ph.D., I studied bacterial survival strategies in methane hydrate-bearing sediments using a pressure vessel I designed and engineered. Continuing my zeal for studying deep-sea sediment microbes, I am now a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Samantha Joye’s lab where I’m studying the effects of terminal electron acceptors on the coupling of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) to sulfate reduction in oil seeps. I’m excited to continue learning new methods in this lab, which will greatly benefit me when I am running my own lab in the future.