Prof. Jody W. Deming (US) inaugural recipient of the Karl M. Banse Professorship, is an oceanographer who explores the limits of viral and microbial life in polar oceans, including adaptations to extreme cold in sea ice and microbial functions at the ecosystem level. These interests build on prior research in the cold deep sea and its hotter subseafloor realm, using pressure-retaining equipment and submersibles. At the University of Washington, she has trained numerous graduate students, directed the Marine Bioremediation Program, launched what has become the Center for Environmental Genomics, and co-founded the nation’s first PhD program in Astrobiology. She has served as Chief Scientist for interdisciplinary icebreaking expeditions in the Arctic Ocean, developed through her work on international committees. In recognition of her work, she has been elected to the American Academy of Microbiology and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. As Editor-in-Chief of the Ocean Science domain of the non-profit, open-access journal Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, she embraces the written word for public good. She continues her career as an explorer through collective leadership of the Ocean Memory Project, a new frontier of ocean research and practice that combines many threads of knowledge, experience, and expression.
Photo: Emilie Asplund, GU Journal
