Bess Ward

Bess Ward is an American oceanographer, biogeochemist, microbiologist, and William J. Sinclair Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University.[1]

Bess Ward
Alma materUniversity of Washington (PhD, MS); Michigan State University (BS)
Known forBiological oceanography, Biogeochemistry, Nitrogen cycle
Scientific career
InstitutionsPrinceton University

Ward studies include marine and global nitrogen cycles, and how marine organisms such as phytoplankton and bacteria influence the nitrogen cycle. Ward was the first woman awarded the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) for her pioneering work on applying molecular methods for nitrogen and methane conversions as well as scaling up organismal biogeochemical rates to whole ecosystem rates.[2]

Education and early career

Ward received her Bachelor of Sciences degree in zoology from the Michigan State University in 1976. Dr. Ward went on to obtain a Master's degree in biological oceanography from the University of Washington in 1979, followed by her PhD at the same institution in 1982.[3] Ward's early work focused on quantifying the rates of nitrogen transformation performed by bacteria and phytoplankton, and was the editor for a special edition of Marine Chemistry on "Aquatic Nitrogen Cycles" in 1985.[4]

After her PhD, Ward worked as a research biologist and oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, where she also served as the chairperson of the Food Chain Research Group.[3]

Career

Dr. Ward became a professor of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1989. From 1995–1998, Ward was the chair of the Ocean Sciences Department at University of California, Santa Cruz before becoming a professor in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University in 1998. In 2006, Ward became the chair of the Department of Geosciences at Princeton and has held the position ever since. Dr. Ward has held numerous visiting scientist and trustee positions throughout her career at institutions such as the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, and the Max Planck Institute für Limnologie. As of 2018, ard had advised 21 graduate students and 20 postdoctoral scholars. Broadly, Ward and her lab members research how bacteria and phytoplankton transform and use nitrogen in marine and coastal ecosystems using various molecular and isotopic techniques.[5][6][7] Ward spends time on research cruises and expeditions, conducting research (and sometimes teaching remotely[8]) while on the ocean for days to weeks at a time.

Nitrogen cycling

Areas in the ocean that are low in oxygen, called oxygen deficient zones (ODZs), are important areas for nitrogen cycling yet only make up about 0.1-0.2% of the total volume of the world ocean. Over one quarter of all nitrogen in the oceans is lost to gaseous nitrogen forms (e.g. N2, N2O) in the ODZs through various nitrogen transformation pathways including denitrification and anammox, however, the rates of nitrogen transformation and type of transformation that is taking place in ODZs remains unclear and subject of much of Ward's research.[9][10][11][12] Ward and her lab developed an isotopic tracer method to measure the rate of N2O reduction in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean and found that incomplete denitrification in ODZs increases N2O accumulation and eventual efflux to the atmosphere.[6] N2O is a potent greenhouse gas and Ward's research shows that the expanding ODZs in the global ocean may increase the amount of N2O entering the atmosphere.

Professional service

Ward has served on review panels of university graduate programs, institutional oceanography programs, and National Science Foundation funding programs.[3]

Awards

Selected publications
  • Community composition of nitrous oxide related genes and their relationship to nitrogen cycling rates in salt marsh sediments, Frontiers in Microbiology, 9: 170 (2018)
  • Denitrification as the dominant nitrogen loss process in the Arabian Sea., Nature, 461: 78-82 (2009)
  • Methane oxidation and methane fluxes in the ocean surface layer and in deep anoxic waters. Nature, 327: 226-229 (1987)
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References
  1. "People | The Ward Lab". nitrogen.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  2. "ASLO : G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award". www.aslo.org. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  3. "People | The Ward Lab". nitrogen.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  4. "Marine Chemistry | Aquatic Nitrogen Cycles-a Session convened at the joint meeting of the American Geophysical Union and the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography | ScienceDirect.com". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  5. "Home Page | The Ward Lab". nitrogen.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  6. Babbin, Andrew R.; Bianchi, Daniele; Jayakumar, Amal; Ward, Bess B. (2015-06-05). "Rapid nitrous oxide cycling in the suboxic ocean". Science. 348 (6239): 1127–1129. Bibcode:2015Sci...348.1127B. doi:10.1126/science.aaa8380. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26045434.
  7. Zehr, Jonathan P.; Ward, Bess B. (2002-03-01). "Nitrogen Cycling in the Ocean: New Perspectives on Processes and Paradigms". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 68 (3): 1015–1024. doi:10.1128/AEM.68.3.1015-1024.2002. ISSN 0099-2240. PMC 123768. PMID 11872445.
  8. "Science at sea: Bess Ward teaches and researches from the Pacific Ocean". Princeton University. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  9. "Research | The Ward Lab". nitrogen.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  10. "Bess Ward". Nature. 461 (7260): 9. September 2009. doi:10.1038/7260009a. ISSN 1476-4687. S2CID 45950376.
  11. Jayakumar, Amal; Chang, Bonnie X.; Widner, Brittany; Bernhardt, Peter; Mulholland, Margaret R.; Ward, Bess B. (October 2017). "Biological nitrogen fixation in the oxygen-minimum region of the eastern tropical North Pacific ocean". The ISME Journal. 11 (10): 2356–2367. doi:10.1038/ismej.2017.97. ISSN 1751-7370. PMC 5607377. PMID 28742073.
  12. Ji, Qixing; Buitenhuis, Erik; Suntharalingam, Parvadha; Sarmiento, Jorge L.; Ward, Bess B. (2018). "Global Nitrous Oxide Production Determined by Oxygen Sensitivity of Nitrification and Denitrification" (PDF). Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 32 (12): 1790–1802. Bibcode:2018GBioC..32.1790J. doi:10.1029/2018GB005887. ISSN 1944-9224.
  13. "ASLO : G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award". www.aslo.org. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
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