David Walsh
Principal Investigator
Canada Research Chair in Microbial Ecology and Genomics
Associate Professor, Biology, Concordia University

E-mail: david.walsh@concordia.ca

Susanne Kraemer
Postdoctoral fellow

Research interests: I'm interested in how environmental factors shape the biogeography and fitness landscape of natural microbial populations in ecosystems ranging from soil to lakes and the arctic ocean.
E-mail: susanne.kraemer@mail.concordia.ca

David Colatriano
PhD student

Research interests: My work focuses on the microbial community structure and metabolism of the Canadian Arctic Ocean. In particular, I am exploring links between these communities and their roles in biogeochemical cycling.
E-mail: d_colat@live.concordia.ca

Arthi Ramachandran
PhD student

​Research interests: My research focuses on the metabolic diversity and evolution of methylotrophic bacteria in northern aquatic ecosystems and how they contribute to carbon cycling in freshwater and marine environments in a changing world. I'm also interested in habitat transitions between freshwater and marine environments, and plan to use the OM43/LD28 clade of methylotrophic bacteria as a model organism to study these evolutionary events
E-mail: a_ramac@live.concordia.ca

Thomas Grevesse
PhD student

Research interests: My research seeks to understand how the composition, function and metabolism of marine microbial communities shape biogeochemical and ecological processes in the Arctic Ocean. I am particularly interested in how these processes are affected by a rapidly changing climate
E-mail: thomas.grevesse@gmail.com

Vera Onana
PhD student

Research Interests: My research involves investigating the distribution and biodiversity of microbial communities in lakes using genomic approaches. I am also interested in evaluating the relationship between the functional potential of lake microbial communities and anthropogenic impact. Hopefully, findings from my investigation will help predict how human impact may be disrupting lake health and functionality.
E-mail: vera.onana@mail.concordia.ca

Joanna Gauthier
PhD student - cosupervised with I. Gregory-Eaves (McGill U.)

Research Interests: My research interests focus on evaluating ecological changes in lakes using both classical and molecular approaches applied to sediment extracts. Using DNA archived in the sediments, I reconstruct past biological assemblages of microbial eukaryotes and link the changes observed with the DNA signal to the changes observed with classical paleolimnological methods.
E-mail: gauthier.joanna@gmail.com

Stephanie Pacheco
MSc student

Research Interests: I am interested in deciphering the ecological roles and the evolutionary relationships of microorganisms in freshwater and marine ecosystems. I am investigating the metabolic activities and biogeography of microbial communities in both the Arctic Ocean and seasonally ice-covered lakes in eastern Canada. In addition, I am exploring the evolution of freshwater-marine transitions through the study of typically freshwater Actinobacteria  clades that we find in marine ecosystems.
E-mail: s_pacheco7@hotmail.com

Lise Millera Ferrez
MSc student - cosupervised with M. Amyot (U. of Montreal)

Research Interests: I am currently working on the mercury cycle in the Saint Maurice River sediments focusing on both biogeochemistry and genomics aspects. Regarding the genomic, my research explores how microbial communities (main groups involved in methylation such as methanogens, sulfate-reducer and iron reducers) are linked to the methylation/demethylation rates calculated in situ.
E-mail: lise.milleraferrez@gmail.com

Makayla Harrison
MSc student

Research Interests: I am currently studying the methylation of mercury from anaerobic bacteria found in sediments and periphyton in aquatic ecosystems.
E-mail: makayla.harrison@mail.concordia.ca

Rebecca Garner
MSc student

Research Interests: My research explores how human impact has altered Canadian lake microbial communities before and since industrialization by comparing the environmental DNA in shallow (present day) and deep (preindustrial) lake sediments.  Developing these paleogenetic techniques is in contrast with the classical paleolimnological approach, which has relied on plankton subfossil morphologies to reconstruct past lake communities.
E-mail: rebecca.garner@mail.concordia.ca

Wentworth Brookes
Systems analyst

Research Interests: Wentworth plays the essential role of keeping our high performance computer cluster operational.
E-mail: wentworth.brookes@concordia.ca