Welcome
Research in the Ward laboratory concerns the marine and global nitrogen cycle, using molecular biological investigations of marine bacteria and bacterial processes (especially nitrification and denitrification), and measuring the rates of N transformation processes using various isotope approaches. We have ongoing research in the following areas:
- Nitrogen cycling (nitrification, denitrification, anammox, etc.) in several suboxic zones of the world ocean (Arabian Sea, Eastern Tropical North and South Pacific) and in Chesapeake Bay, Great Sippewissett Salt Marsh, etc.
- Nitrogen assimilation by phytoplankton and functional diversity of eukaryotic phytoplankton in the world ocean
- Diversity of functional guilds of bacteria involved in the nitrogen cycle of aquatic systems
Please contact us for more information and for queries about undergraduate, graduate and post doctoral research opportunities.
News
When oceanographer Bess Ward was granted research time aboard the R/V Sally Ride during the middle of the spring semester, she had to figure out how to teach GEO 428, “Biological Oceanography,” from the Pacific Ocean. She created a teaching schedule that used student presentations, a series of guest lecturers, and her first teaching assistant…