Overview
Dr. Becky McCerery is a polar biogeochemist bridging glaciology, geochemistry, and microbiology to understand subglacial systems, some of Earth's most isolated and harsh environments. Dr. McCerery earned her PhD from Northumbria University in the UK where she investigated the interface physics processes governing glacier slipperiness from the mobilisation of hydrocarbons to the presence of microbial biofilms.
She combines fieldwork in the Arctic with laboratory analyses to addresses fundamental questions about habitability and geochemical processes happening beneath the ice. She has worked on a number of Arctic field campaigns, characterising microbial communities beneath glaciers in Svalbard to understanding weathering processes happening deep beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet.
In her current role with the Planetary Habitability & Technology Lab, Becky is contributing to the NASA PSTAR SSHOW UP program with field campaigns in northwest Greenland. Her work focuses on how microbial communities adapt to harsh environments and how those processes can serve as analogs for planetary habitability. She will be integrating microbial and geochemical data with oceanographic and glaciological measurements, with implications for the search for life on ocean worlds.