2018/2019 GBGM Division Representatives

Hello GBGM community,
We would like to introduce the new Representatives for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division. Most members will serve 2-year terms, but we often have student officers serve shorter or longer terms.

Division Chair: Rowan Martindale (the University of Texas at Austin)

I am delighted to take on the responsibilities of GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division chair. I have served the division for the past four years (Secretary and Vice Chair) and have enthusiastically watched the division grow and expand our voice into social media. I look forward to continuing to promote diversity and early career geobiologists as well as supporting your interests in the division and geo(micro)biology within the geological community.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences (Jackson School of Geosciences) at the University of Texas at Austin and my research involves both field and lab work, from large-scale mapping to thin section analysis of microfossils. Recent research in my lab has been focused on reef paleoecology, exceptional fossilization of marine communities, and the geobiology of carbon cycle perturbation events (e.g. ocean acidification and dysoxia in deep time).

Vice Chair: Victoria (Vicky) Petryshyn (University of Southern California)

Hi everyone, I look forward to serving as the GBGM Vice Chair; I have been a faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program at USC since 2016. I’ve had a wonderful time serving as GBGM’s treasurer for the past four years, and am grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve as your Vice Chair. Our division has seen many gains recently, especially in increasing membership among students, early-career scientists, and underrepresented groups. I feel it is especially important to reach out to those who are just starting their scientific pursuits in order to give them a sense of community. This is a rapidly evolving field, and I am excited to work with the rest of the Executive Committee in increasing our visibility at GSA and in the larger scientific community.







Past Chair: Simon Darroch (Vanderbilt University)

I am a geobiologist and assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, with a research program focused on understanding major changes in the complexity of Earth-Life systems. I am proud of all the advances the GBGM has made during my time as Vice Chair and Chair and I look forward to continuing to to serve the community as Past Chair.











Secretary: David Gold (University of California, Davis)

I am delighted to join the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division as your new secretary. I am a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis. My work focuses on paleogenomics, or the use of genetic data to study geobiological questions. I’m particularly interested in the rise of animals through the Neoproterozoic /Cambrian boundary, with a focus on the evolution of biomineralization and the synthesis of geochemical biomarkers. I also raise animals in the lab to study their biology, including jellyfish and sea sponges.

This is my first time working for GSA. I see this secretary position as an opportunity to learn about the role committees play in the organization, and to develop my skillset for future service. I love geobiology because of its interdisciplinary nature. There are so many exciting geological questions that could be investigated with biological data, but they haven’t been pursued because the two scientific disciplines communicate less often than they should. My goal is to facilitate greater collaboration between geologists and geneticists, making sure that we take advantage of the rapidly-changing tools in molecular biology to probe questions related to Earth’s history.



Treasurer: Trinity Hamilton (University of Minnesota)

I am excited to be the new Treasurer for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division. GBGM is a growing community of interdisciplinary scientists spanning career tracks with a significant membership comprised of early career scientists and grad students. As an early career scientist with a non-traditional path to Geobiology and Geomicrobiology, I look forward to the opportunity to promote collaboration and community in the Division along with the other officers.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Minnesota. My lab employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine the role of microbes in pivotal events in Earth history and how biologically-mediated processes are recorded over evolutionary time. We study microbial phototrophs in environments that mimic conditions of Earth’s past using next-generation sequencing technologies to examine physiology, function, and evolutionary history. Through these studies, we aim to answer outstanding questions in microbial ecology and evolution including the form and function of the Earth’s earliest phototrophs and the contribution of these organisms to biogeochemical cycling in Earth’s past, present, and future.


GBGM Division Representative: Lydia Tackett (North Dakota State)

Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Lydia Tackett and I am the GBGM Division Representative (a roll I also filled in 204-2016). My research focuses on the paleoecology of shelly marine animals from the Late Triassic, particularly how they adapted to changing levels of predation, how they were affected by the Manicouagan bolide impact, and what ecological and taxonomic consequences these transitions had on the extinction events in the latest Triassic. To evaluate this areas of research, I collect large samples of fossiliferous sedimentary rock from various field localities, interpret depositional environments with sedimentology in the field, using microfacies, and microfossils, and correlate sequences using biostratigraphy and isotope chemostratigraphy.


Student Representative (2017-2019): Amanda Godbold (University of Southern California)

My name is Amanda Godbold, I am a graduate student at the University of Southern California. I am the student representative for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology division. I am honored to be a part of this division alongside some amazing academics in the field of Geobiology and Geomicrobiology. My research interests are in conservation paleobiology, which applies deep-time information to current issues surrounding conservation. The overarching goal of my research is to gain a deeper understanding of marine refugia (i.e. ecosystems that provide relief from environmental stress). Currently, my research focuses on the ecologic stability of reef ecosystems during times of environmental stress. I am using methods derived from geochemistry, computer science, statistics, paleontology and modern ecology to address these research objectives. 


Student Representative (2018-2020): Andrew Putt (University of Tennessee Knoxville)

I am excited for this opportunity to serve the GBGM community as one of your student representatives!

My research investigates the fundamental survival strategies of the smallest size fraction of metabolically active microbial organisms. We research the unique and diverse metabolic relationship of the microbial community to the radionuclides, heavy metals, and other compounds found in the contaminated Y-12 National Security Complex aquifer in Oak Ridge, TN. Research updates and educational bioremediation topics can be found at (www.theremediator.net), and open access publications from our lab can be found at (http://hazenlab.utk.edu/publications.php). I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, a Graduate Research Intern at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and a junior scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy ENIGMA (Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies) research consortium. Before my current graduate studies I worked in the private pharmaceutical testing sector as an associate microbiologist, was an Undergraduate Research Fellow with the American Society for Microbiology, and received a B.S. in Environmental Biology and a B.S. in Watershed Management Geoscience from Mansfield University in PA.