Sonya Dyhrman’s interest in marine biology began when she was a child, exploring tidal pools with her grandfather on the coast near her Tacoma, Washington home. For a science project in high school she studied toxin-producing microbes in Puget Sound that accumulate in shellfish during parts of the year and can cause paralysis and even death in humans if those shellfish are consumed.
Now a microbial oceanographer at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, her research focuses on tiny microbes in the ocean that play a role in the earth’s climate.
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