Julia Brown

Education

Ph.D., Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2015

B.A., Chemistry (Biochemistry), Carleton College, Northfield, MN, 2008

Research Interests

How do viruses and microbes impact dynamic ecosystems?

When you step into the ocean on planet Earth, you are stepping into an ocean of viruses. Roughly 50 million viruses are suspended within every teaspoon of seawater. But before you swear off swimming forever, consider this: all ecosystems on the planet, even the human body, are awash with viruses. The good news is, the vast majority of these viruses infect microbes. While viral infection often leads to microbial death, viruses play critical roles – from fueling nutrient cycling at the base of the food web to shaping the structure and activity of microbial communities.

Connecting viruses and hosts. Viruses are the smallest but most abundant biological entities on the planet. Thanks to advances in low-cost DNA and RNA sequencing, we are now better equipped to detect and catalog the genomes of wild, uncultivated viruses. However, for most discovered viruses, we still don’t know which hosts they infect—a major barrier to understanding their ecological roles. A central goal of my research is to bridge this gap: linking viral diversity to the microbial hosts they infect using cutting-edge sequencing technologies and bioinformatics tools.

Links to Microbial Processes My research also investigates how viruses and environmental changes impact the diversity and function of microbial communities. We study these dynamics in naturally variable systems, such as the vertical gradients of Oxygen Minimum Zones and the seasonally and spatially dynamic Gulf of Maine. The overarching goal is to gain knowledge that contributes to predictive models and tools that clarify how microbial and viral communities influence broader ecosystem health and function.

Education and Outreach I pursue these research themes by analyzing large, integrated datasets that span molecular types, technologies, disciplines, and scales. A key part of my mission is to make data science and bioinformatics more accessible, especially to students and early-career researchers. To that end, I lead coding and bioinformatics workshops, teach in Bigelow Laboratory’s Sea Change Semester, and mentor undergraduate interns in my lab.