Sustainability Leadership Fellowship Cohort: 2012-2013

Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Global Environmental Sustainability

Research Summary: Dr. Kelly S Ramirez is a soil microbial ecologist and is interested in characterizing the diversity and biogeographical patterns of soil microbes across the globe-including-Bacteria, Archaea, fungi and other eukaryotes. Kelly’s primary objectives are to (1) characterize the diversity in soils across the globe, from Central Park, NYC to Antarctica, using high-throughput sequencing techniques; (2) understand the mechanisms underlying bacterial community and functional shifts with respect to global change factors; and (3) establish a framework to synthesize global soil biodiversity data. Currently Kelly is a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) where she is expanding her research questions to include above-below ground interactions and examine the critical relationships between soil microbial communities and plants. Specifically, she is interested in how soil microbial community composition and diversity may change as plants’ expand their range to new locations.

In addition to her research, Kelly has led, and is involved in a number of global synthesis and networking efforts: Prior to her position at the NIOO she was the Executive Director of the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and a postdoctoral scholar at Colorado State University. Additionally, she was Awarded a postdoctoral fellowship with the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity in Leipzig, Germany where she organized an international workshop on the global synthesis of soil biodiversity data.