Former lab member returns to campus to present research

It was exciting to see former Howard Lab member Karen Lloyd '00, now a professor at University of Tennessee, return to Swarthmore's campus to present her work on novel types of microbes in Earth's deep surface biosphere.

Karen is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the of Tennessee.  Her seminar at Swarthmore in October 2019 was titled "Interactions between the deep subsurface microbial biosphere and tectonic processes at a subduction zone" . 

Check out Karen's wonderful Ted Talks online:
2018: "This deep-sea mystery is changing our understanding of life"   (2.2 million views by 2/24/20) 
2019: "  The mysterious microbes living deep inside the earth - and how they could help humanity (1.8 million views by 2/24/20)

Karen was one of Kathleen Howard's first research students when she arrived at Swarthmore as a young assistant professor.  Karen's senior thesis at Swat was titled "Studying transmembrane helical peptides in magnetically oriented phopholipid bilayers".   Kathleen has vivid memories of accompanying both Karen and her classmate Margaret Parker Stafford '00 to New Orleans LA for  a Biophysical Society meeting.