Geoff Christensen received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008 and his doctorate from the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 2014, both in Biochemistry. He worked with Judy Wall at Missouri, where he characterized the redox repressor Rex and its role in regulating the metabolism of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough, a sulfate reducer. While pursuing his degree, Christensen developed skills in molecular modeling; culturing aerobes and anaerobes; mutagenesis; and purification and analysis of DNA, RNA, and proteins. As a graduate student at Missouri, Christensen received the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Training Grant, Dr. Charles W. Gehrke Jr. Memorial Scholarship, and the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) Young Scientist Grant. He joined ORNL in January 2015 under the mentorship of Dwayne Elias. As a part of ORNL’s mercury Science Focus Area program, Christensen develops and validates molecular probes for accessing mercury methylation in the environment, further refining his molecular and microbiology techniques. He presented some of these findings at the 2015 American Geophysical Union fall meeting.
Posted: July 2016
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