Brown University Assistant Professor Mara Freilich is a principal investigator in the renewed Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-CoMP), which has received an additional five years of funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), C-CoMP is an NSF Science and Technology Center bringing together researchers from 14 institutions to investigate how microscopic organisms and the molecules they produce, exchange, and consume shape ocean ecosystems, Earth's carbon cycle, and climate.

Freilich, who holds appointments in Brown's Division of Applied Mathematics and Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, was a faculty fellow during the center's initial five-year funding period and will serve as a principal investigator in its renewed phase. Her work will focus on developing multiscale models to better understand the complex interactions between microbial processes and ocean-scale systems.

The renewal builds on five years of interdisciplinary research, including advances in chemical measurement techniques, North Atlantic research expeditions, and the development of publicly available datasets and software tools. The next five years will allow researchers to further investigate the ocean's chemical-microbial networks and how they respond to environmental change, including ocean warming and acidification.

The center's work exemplifies the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together expertise in mathematics, marine chemistry, microbiology, oceanography, and computational science to address fundamental questions about Earth's changing climate.

Read the full announcement from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: C-CoMP receives five-year NSF renewal