Alison Murray

Alison Murray is a microbial ecologist with expertise in biological oceanography, molecular biology, environmental genomics and the study of life in extreme environments. She's worked on a number of Antarctic research projects that have taken her from the waters of the Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland Islands and North-west Weddell Sea, to McMurdo Sound and Lake Vida, in the McMurdo dry valleys. She's also helped teach a graduate-level training course in Antarctic biology at McMurdo Station on several occasions. Her work has involved studying free-living and host associated microbes, their diversity, ecological patterns, and adaptive capabilities as well as their roles in biogeochemical processes. Recent work has illuminated the diversity of an Antarctic ascidian-associated microbiome, and the genome-encoded biosynthetic pathway of a potential anticancer compound palmerolide A, in a new genus of bacteria.