Faculty Directory

The faculty listed below have research interests related to the subsurface biosphere. To add names to the directory, please email sbi@oregonstate.edu. Faculty are listed by college and department:

College of Agricultural Sciences
Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering

  • Frank Chaplen
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Cellular engineering; metabolic engineering; animal cell culture.

  • Roger Ely
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Metabolic responses in nitrifying bacteria; Bio-based hydrogen energy systems.

  • Hong Liu
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Sustainable bioenergy production; environmental biotechnology; waste and wastewater treatment; microbial fuel cell technology; biohydrogen production.

  • John Selker
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests    : Physics and biology of contaminant transport in unsaturated soils, with particular interest in the connection between biological growth and water movement.

Department of Botany and Plant Pathology

  • Daniel Arp
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Nitrification; agriculturally and environmentally relevant microbial biochemistry and physiology, bioremediation.

  • Kate Lajtha
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Nutrient cycling in natural and human-disturbed ecosystems, soil organic matter dynamics, forest biogeochemistry.

  • Joyce Loper
    Courtesy Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Microbial interactions on plant surfaces, especially the interactions between biological control agents and plant pathogens

  • Luis Sayavedra-Soto
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Molecular biology, biochemistry and physiology of microorganisms that are capable of alkane oxidation and of microorganisms in the nitrogen cycle.

  • Joey Spatafora
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Molecular systematics and population genetics of fungi.

Department of Crop and Soil Science

  • John Baham
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Reductive dissolution(and oxidation) of Fe and Mn oxide minerals in seasonally reduced soils.

  • Peter Bottomley
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Physiology and ecology of bacteria that inhabit the surface and subsurface soil environment, and especially those bacteria involved in the nitrogen cycle and biodegradation of xenobiotic compounds.

  • Maria Dragila
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Mechanisms generating accelerated transport of fluids and solutes through highly heterogeneous unsaturated soils.

  • Markus Kleber
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Poorly crystalline mineral phases in soils and what role they play in the biosphere.

  • David Myrold
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Diversity, ecology, and functioning of microorganisms in soil; particularly as they relate to the cycling of N and C in soils of forest and agricultural ecosystems.

  • Julie Pett-Ridge
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Chemical weathering,the carbon cycle, and ecosystem biogeochemical cycles. 

Department of Horticulture

  • Anita Azarenko
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Integrated and organic tree fruit farming systems, especially orchard floor management systems including soil biology, tree fruit and nut biology, physiology, and floral biology

Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology

  • Jennifer Field
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Occurrence, transport, and fate of organic contaminants in ground water, surface water, and wastewater treatment systems.

  • Staci Simonich
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Atmospheric transport and deposition of semi-volatile organic compounds to high elevation ecosystems.

College of Engineering

School of Civil and Construction Engineering

  • Jonathan Istok
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Microbially mediated reactions to reduce subsurface contamination of solvents, petroleum, toxic metals and radioactive elements.

School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering

  • Mark Dolan
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Biological processes for the treatment of hazardous wastes, and on the fate and transport of organic contaminants in the environment.

  • Christine Kelley
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Development of yeast and bacterial strains to produce enzymes and products from waste biomass feed stocks. Effect of toxicants on wastewater treatment microbial communities.

  • Jeffrey Nason
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Physical/chemical processes for the removal of particles from water and wastewater.

  • Lewis Semprini
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: In-situ bioremediation of subsurface of contamination with chlorinated solvents.

  • Dorthe Wildenschild
    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Hydrogeology, vadose zone flow and transport, measurement techniques and numerical modeling.

  • Brian Wood
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Mass, momentum, and energy transport in environmental engineering; subsurface hydrology; bioremediation and biochemical processes.

College of Forestry

Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society

  • Kermit Cromack
    Emeritus Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Decomposition and nutrient cycling processes in forest ecosystems; N2- fixation in forest soils; soil animals as ecosystem components; role of saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi in nutrient cyclingprocesses; role of cations in forest nutrition.

  • Mark Harmon
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Ecosystem succession processes, decomposition, nutrient cycling, carbon dynamics, landscape dynamics.

  • Beverly Law
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Ecosystem processes, including carbon and water cycling (e.g. photosynthesis, transpiration by trees and shrubs, autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration).

  • Phil Sollins
    Emeritus Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Forest ecosystems analysis including primary production, nutrient cycling, decomposition, and social/ecological interactions.
College of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences

  • Robert Collier
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Marine Biogeochemistry, from cold seeps and hydrates to high temperature hydrothermal systems.

  • Frederick (Rick) Colwell
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Microbial ecology, subsurface microbiology, geomicrobiology, bioremediation.

  • Martin R. Fisk
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Marine geologist working with sea floor volcanoes and microbes in volcanic rocks. Potential projects in microbial colonization of the deep ocean floor and continental rocks. Comparison of rocks from Earth and other planetary bodies.

  • Gary Klinkhammer
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Marine geologist and marine chemist, interested in chemical reactions in sediments and hydrothermal vents. Projects available for students who are fluent in chemistry and interested in technology starting fall 2005.

  • Jim McManus
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Sediment geochemistry of paleo-proxies (Ba, U, Mo, V, Ge, Cd, etc.); cycling of organic carbon, carbonate, phosphorus, biogenic silica, and trace elements in aquatic environments and sediments; Paleoclimate/Paleoceanography; watershed geochemistry and anthropogenic influences on geochemical cycles.

  • Clare Reimers
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Benthic biogeochemistry; chemical sensor development; in-situ measurements of redox conditions in natural waters and sediments; carbonate chemistry.

  • Marta Torres
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Exploration of cold seepage at convergent and transform margins; gas hydrate dynamics.

College of Science

Department of Chemistry

  • Jim Ingle
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Application of analytical chemistry and instrumentation in environmental studies of surface and ground water.

  • Jack Westall
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: The application of surface and solution chemistry to problems in environmental chemistry, electrochemistry, and analytical chemistry.

Department of Geosciences

  • Roy Haggerty
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Exchange of water between streams and the shallow subsurface (the hyporheic zone), on nitrate transport through sediments below agricultural lands in Oregon, groundwater flow modeling, and on the physics of solute transport in highly heterogeneous materials.

Department of Microbiology

  • Peter Bottomley
    Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Physiology and ecology of bacteria that inhabit the surface and subsurface soil environment, and especially those bacteria involved in the nitrogen cycle and biodegradation of xenobiotic compounds.
College of Pharmacy

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

  • Taifo Mahmud
    Associate Professor
    Contact Information
    Research Interests: Bioorganic and natural products chemistry; biosynthesis of microbial secondary metabolites; and the interface of molecular genetics, enzymology, and chemistry to create and develop novel pharmaceutically active leads.