Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences Mary Maxon has announced N. Louise Glass’s intention to step down as Director of the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division as of May 23, 2020. She has been a highly successful Division Director, ushering in several new DOE-funded programs, including our newest Scientific Focus Area, m-CAFEs, and two multi-lab efforts, TEAMS and the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC).
Late last year, Louise led a reorganization of her Division to better serve researchers in EGSB. Glass will remain a valued member of the Biosciences Area as a senior faculty scientist in EGSB, actively participating in the m-CAFEs SFA and EcoPOD development. She will keep working with EGSB leadership on finalizing the re-organization of EGSB departments and ensuring a smooth transition. Her leadership will continue to generate fresh collaborations, interactions, projects, and programs within EGSB; with other researchers across our Area; and with collaborators across other Areas at Berkeley Lab and beyond.
Susannah Tringe, senior scientist and Joint Genome Institute (JGI) Deputy of User Programs, has agreed to serve as Interim EGSB Division Director while a world-wide search for Glass’s replacement is conducted. Tringe has been with the JGI for 17 years, beginning as a postdoctoral fellow and progressing in her career to be the head of the Microbial Systems Group since 2010 and Metagenome Program lead from 2011 to 2015 before assuming her current Deputy role. Major foci of her current research efforts are the roles of microbial communities in wetland carbon cycling and the interactions of plants with their associated microbiomes. In addition, she is working on an LDRD project in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines to study the microbes involved in biological treatment of produced water.
