A fascination with tiny organisms is taking recent grad big places
For recent St. Olaf College graduate Serina Robinson ’15, the best kind of research comes in small packages.
And, notes a story in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, “her fascination with tiny organisms is taking her big places.”
Robinson, one of nine recent St. Olaf graduates named Fulbright fellows for 2015-16, will use the prestigious award to travel to Norway to study the impact of rising Arctic temperatures on the metabolism of methane-oxidizing bacteria.
“I think it’s important that we understand that for our own applications, but also for the health of the earth and ecosystems,” Robinson tells the paper.
After her year in Norway, Robinson will return to Minnesota to pursue her Ph.D. through the MICaB (microbiology, immunology, and cancer biology) program at the University of Minnesota. She’ll do so with the support of a three-year Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
A chemistry and Norwegian major at St. Olaf, Robinson hopes to become a university professor and research advisor.
“I think that bacteria are fascinating,” she tells the Argus Leader. “They can be little factories, you know, and they can do a lot of really cool processes that we learn from.”