For Graduate Students & Postdoctorals

Professional Development

Virtual Meeting Series
Building on the enthusiasm of our first virtual annual meeting in 2020, we continue to bring the C-DEBI community together through a virtual meeting series. These virtual events are held monthly during the first week of each month, with a regular rotation of science workshops and professional development workshops. Each workshop contains about 90 minutes of programming, including plenary presentations by invited speakers, a community building breakout session, and a plenary Q&A session.

Professional Development Webinars
In addition to providing training in state-of-the-art technologies and instrumentation for graduate students and beyond, we emphasized professional development training targeting skills needed both in and out of academia. These live interactive webinars provided transferable skills for all early career scientists and are archived on the website for those unable to “attend” the live events.

Networked Speaker Series
C-DEBI is a “networked” Science and Technology Center, gathering expertise, ideas, and participation from institutions across the U.S. and around the world. C-DEBI ran the Networked Speaker Series as one means to enhance communication and the exchange of ideas via short (30 minute) presentations with time for questions and discussion. The series was presented live online for remote participants, and is recorded and available on the website for those unable to “attend” the live events.

SoCal Geobiology Symposium
The Southern California Geobiology Symposium is an annual student-run event designed to bring geobiologists together to discuss current research and build local collaborations. It is an opportunity for undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs to present geobiological research in the form of oral and poster presentations. The topics presented span various disciplines including geology, geochemistry, astrobiology, microbiology, oceanography, paleobiology/-ecology and environmental sciences.  With sponsorship by C-DEBI, the symposium is hosted in rotation by USC, Caltech and UC Riverside.

Fellowships and Grants

Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Fellowships
C-DEBI provided support for graduate student and postdoctoral fellowships awarded on the basis of scientific excellence and the appropriateness of the subject matter to Center objectives. The goal of the fellowship program was to stimulate the advancement of deep biosphere research through the training of a new generation of innovative scientists.

Research Exchange Program
C-DEBI facilitates scientific coordination and collaborations by supporting student, postdoctoral, and faculty exchanges to build, educate and train the deep subseafloor biosphere community. We award small research exchange grants for Center participants. These grants may be used to support research, travel for presenting C-DEBI research at meetings, or travel exchanges to other partner institutions or institutions that have new tools and techniques that can be applied to C-DEBI research.

Research Grants
C-DEBI previously invited research proposals in support of marine deep biosphere research concerning life in marine sediments and volcanic ocean crust.

Related Fellowships and Grants

• Schlanger Ocean Drilling Fellowship for graduate students
• Interridge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowships of up to $5000
• Interridge Cruise Travel Bursaries of up to $2000

Courses

International GeoBiology Course
The “GeoBio” Course is an intense, multidisciplinary summer course exploring the coevolution of the Earth and its biosphere, with an emphasis on how microbial processes affect the environment and leave imprints on the rock record. Participants get hands-on experience in cutting-edge geobiological techniques including molecular biology, bioinformatics, geochemistry, petrology and sedimentology, and work in research groups to solve relevant questions.  The GeoBiology Course is open to students and researchers at any level, although we give preference to graduate students in their early to mid years of study.

Other Relevant Courses

• Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Microbial Diversity Course
• Strategies and Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures (STAMPS)