Ryan Paerl
Bio
As a native North Carolinian, I excitedly joined the MEAS Department at NC State in 2017 to began a new marine & aquatic microbiology (bacteria and algae) research group. I received my PhD in Ocean Sciences from UC Santa Cruz, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Copenhagen prior to starting as an Assistant Professor at NC State. Presently I teach two undergraduate/graduate courses: Aquatic Microbiology and Molecular Ecology of Aquatic Microbes.
Lab website: https://paerllab.wordpress.ncsu.edu/
Education
PhD Ocean Sciences UC Santa Cruz 2011
BS Biology University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2004
Area(s) of Expertise
My research interests focus on improving our current understanding of marine/aquatic microbial ecology, physiology, metabolism, diversity, and biogeography. Problems and questions related to nutrient cycling (production, assimilation, and transformation) are of particular interest. Students in my lab will conduct in-field and/or laboratory-based experiments and employ traditional (cell isolation, culturing) as well as modern molecular techniques (qPCR, PCR, nucleic acid sequencing, isotopic tracing) to test hypotheses.