ASU assistant professor honored with international emerging leader award

The International Center for Deep Life Investigation has announced that Arizona State University Assistant Professor Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert has been honored with the 2020 SiYan Ocean Emerging Leader award. This award honors early career researchers for their distinguished performance and outstanding potential as leaders of the deep life community.

Trembath-Reichert, who is a faculty member in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, was selected for this honor for her fundamental contributions based on single-cell analysis of microbial metabolic activity in subseafloor sediment and crustal fluids using stable isotope-probing nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIP-NanoSIMS) and molecular ecological techniques.

“Her extensive studies on subseafloor habitats, from shallow to deep, have demonstrated that diverse and slow anabolic activities play an important role in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and other elements over geologic time, even under extreme low-energy conditions,” stated the awards committee in a recent announcement.

“It is exciting to see our early career faculty receive international recognition for their growing contributions to their scientific communities,” said School of Earth and Space Exploration Director Meenakshi Wadhwa. “Professor Trembath-Reichert’s innovative work is leading to a clearer understanding of how life is not just surviving but is in fact thriving in many subseafloor habitats."

Trembath-Reichert joins Associate Professor Yinzhao Wang of Shanghai Jiaotong University’s School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, who also received this award. Wang is recognized for his outstanding and pioneering work on exploring and expanding knowledge on anaerobic alkane-metabolizing archaea and their potential evolutionary history by utilizing OMICS-based analyses.

"It is an honor to be recognized by the deep life community with this award. I look forward to the opportunity to present my recent deep life research in the associated International Center for Deep Life Investigation seminar series with my fellow awardees," Trembath-Reichert said.

The awards committee stated that they hope these awards will recognize scholarly contributions, strengthen academic communication and encourage and foster the next generation of deep life researchers.