Microbial communities are essential for our survival, supporting health, agriculture, and climate regulation. We engineer them to perform tasks such as absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide and degrading pollutants, but these communities lose functionality over time, partly because microbial evolution is overlooked.
As a Schmidt Science Fellow, Vivek will use experiments and theoretical models to explore how the stability and function of microbial communities are affected by their evolution, and how to design communities that remain functional in the long term.
Vivek’s research has the potential to offer novel insights into engineering microbial communities to mitigate climate change and improve human health.
Vivek will pivot from Ecology to Microbiology