MBL's Kristen Hunter-Cevera is named a Simons Early Career Investigator

Kristen Hunter-Cevera, a Hibbitt Early Career Fellow at the MBL, has received a three-year award as one of nine Simons Early Career Investigators in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution. These awards from the Simons Foundation are intended to help launch the careers of outstanding investigators in microbial ecology.

Hunter-Cevera is studying the striking differences, or microdiversity, found among the cells of a marine bacterium population (Synechococcus) on the New England Shelf, a coastal zone that extends from the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, to the southern end of Novia Scotia, Canada. Her work will provide insight into why cells of the same population can exhibit major differences in genetics and metabolism, including the factors that select for such microdiversity, such as seasonal environmental changes or species interactions. 

Hunter-Cevera, who joined the MBL in 2017, received a B.S. in biology and mathematics in 2008, and an M.B.A. in 2009 from West Virginia University. She earned a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in 2014.