Dr. Anne Dekas is an assistant professor at Stanford University in the Earth System Science Department and a Simons Foundation Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution. She is broadly interested in how microbial life affects the chemistry and climate of the planet, today and throughout time, and specifically studies marine microbiology and biogeochemistry. Her research combines tools from molecular biology and isotope geochemistry to identify and quantify microbial metabolic capabilities, activity and interactions, with a focus on understanding uncultured microorganisms in deep-sea water and sediment.

Before joining the faculty at Stanford, she was a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she investigated the carbon metabolic flexibility of pelagic marine archaea. She received a Ph.D. in Geobiology from the California Institute of Technology as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, where she studied nitrogen fixation, methane oxidation and sulfate reduction at deep-sea methane seeps. She received an A.B. in Earth and Planetary Sciences, Biogeochemistry, from Harvard University. Originally interested in space sciences, Dekas performed research at 3 NASA centers—Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ames Research Center and Goddard Space Flight Center—before beginning her Ph.D., and she continues to be interested in the survival strategies of life in extreme environments.