Seminar in Marine & Environmental Microbiology

This course is intended to provide students with a discovery-oriented foundation in the study of microbiology in natural environments. Students will learn about the history of environmental microbiology, with a focus on the oceans, as a foundation for identifying open questions and means of studying environmental microbiomes. Each week, students will read two papers, at least one of which will generally be a paper pivotal to the field. Every week will focus on a different major subtopic of environmental microbiology. Students will also sample microhabitats of the Providence River for a semester project analyzing an environmental microbiome, which will be the only assignment apart from weekly readings and class participation. Interested students will have the opportunity to continue analysis of the datasets generated in class as a research project.