Caitlin Gionfriddo received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of South Carolina and completed her masters and Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Melbourne in Australia. In her postgraduate work she used environmental metagenomic techniques to elucidate biogeochemical controls on mercury cycling in geothermal springs and Antarctic sea ice. She joined ORNL’s Biosciences Division as a postdoctoral research associate in late 2017 and is currently working in Dr. Dwayne Elias’ lab as part of the Mercury SFA and ENIGMA projects. Her current research focuses on understanding microbial community function and geochemical influences on mercury transformations from the cellular to community level. At ORNL, Dr. Gionfriddo is applying her expertise in community-scale genomics to answer the “who, how, why” of microbial mercury methylation. In FY18 and FY19 she has coauthored five papers, including first authorship on an improved method for identifying mercury methylation genes in the environment. In FY18 she gave a keynote presentation at the 2018 Goldschmidt Conference on her work exploring the “native function” of mercury methylation proteins. She presented her work at BER’s 2018 and 2019 Environmental System Science PI meetings and will be presenting at the upcoming International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant in Poland. Recently, Dr. Gionfriddo was awarded a $60,802 FY19 EMSL user proposal to apply multi-omics techniques to explore the physiological role of the mercury methylation proteins, HgcAB, in cellular metabolism. Outside the lab, she applies her chemistry and microbiology knowledge to making beer, kombucha, and sourdough. She also has a keen interest in hiking, botany, and mycology and enjoys the many outdoor activities around East Tennessee.
Posted: June 2019
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