About Us
We study how genetic information shapes the functions, behaviors, and roles of cells and organisms across the tree of life. The work ranges in scale from the molecular to the ecological. In practice that has meant building computational tools to predict how a cell feeds when no one has watched it feed, sequencing genomes for lineages that have never had one, asking how microeukaryotes sense and interpret their environment, working out how a green alga lives inside a salamander embryo, and developing methods to get genome-scale information from the small amounts of material that deep-sea animals yield. Different problems, but each one starts from an organism and a question about it, and the microbiology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics follow from there.
People
Principal investigator
John A. Burns
Senior Research Scientist, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Research Faculty, Colby College. Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History.
I received my BA in Geoscience from Franklin and Marshall College, my PhD in molecular biology from New York University, and completed my postdoctoral training at the American Museum of Natural History.
Joining the lab
New positions depend on funding, but I am always glad to hear from people interested in the work. Get in touch.
Former lab members
Postdocs
- Baptiste Genot, 2020–2024. Now a Project Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo.
REU students
- Brooks Osborn, Colby College, Summer 2024. Now a medical student at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
- Tyler Bauersfeld, Southern Maine Community College, Summer 2022. Now a research technician at IDEXX.
- Margaret Grogan, Fordham University, Summer 2022. Now a Master’s student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science with Nicole Millette.
- Matthew Yost, University of Maine, Summer 2021. Now a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with Katrina Velle.
- Jessica Liu, Vassar College, Summer 2020.
- Tre-Andice Williams, Truman State University, Summer 2020.
Colby semester students
- Valerie Tonigold, Southern Maine Community College, Fall 2024. Now an undergraduate student at Cal State Monterey Bay.
- Caroline Alexander, Colby College, Fall 2022. Now a Research Technician II at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard.
- Charis Li, Colby College, Fall 2020. Now a Master’s student at Harvard Medical School.
Current support
Innovating In-Situ Digital Synthesis Strategies for Ocean Species Discovery Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Ocean Shot Research Grant Program. 2025 to 2028. Ship time aboard R/V Falkor (too) contributed by Schmidt Ocean Institute.
Microscopic and genetic investigation into the endogenous viral elements in green algae National Research Foundation of Korea. 2025 to 2028.
Profiles
- New scientist evolves laboratory’s expertise Bigelow Laboratory, 2019
Contact
John A. Burns
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
60 Bigelow Drive, East Boothbay, ME 04544
jburns [at] bigelow.org