Cohen named 2024 Simons Early Career Investigator

Marine sciences faculty member Natalie Cohen has received a multi-year grant from the Simons Foundation to support her phytoplankton research investigations off the Georgia coast:

Cohen, assistant professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named a 2024 Simons Early Career Investigator. The three-year grant provides $810,000 to fund her work tracking shifts in phytoplankton physiology along continental shelf ecosystems.

A researcher in biological oceanography, Cohen is interested in how microbial communities interact with their chemical environment across depths of the ocean, and how they contribute to ocean ecology and biogeochemistry. Microbial organisms like phytoplankton play a critical role in ocean carbon cycling by serving as a foundation for the marine food web and transporting carbon to deeper layers of the ocean.

“We have a continental shelf right here off the coast of Georgia that’s relatively underexplored, and we call that area the South Atlantic Bight,” Cohen said. “That’s one of the regions I’m interested in sampling.”

Collaborating with colleagues at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Cohen will gather data from the continental shelves of the South Atlantic Bight and Gulf of Mexico on cruises of opportunity. This will help her compare species that live in different ocean layers and examine their adaptations for surviving in distinct chemical environments.

Cohen acknowledged the long road and years of mentorship and support that assisted her development.

“I’m extremely humbled and grateful to receive this award. My previous NSF grants have helped give me the training and provided equipment to start doing the research that my lab now carries out,” Cohen said. “I also acknowledge the University and the Institute. They supported me the first three years before my research grants were funded and maintained the equipment needed for my research program.”

Continue reading...

Image: Photo of Natalie Cohen by Jackson K. Schroeder