Dr. Jill Banfield

Biography

Jill F. Banfield is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her primary research interests lie in the fields of geomicrobiology and environmental microbiology, focusing on how microorganisms influence and shape natural environments. Her research group employs cultivation-independent approaches, such as metagenomics and community proteomics, to study microbial communities. They explore the microbial dissolution and precipitation of minerals, their properties, and their reactivity, particularly concerning nanoparticles formed by microorganisms. Banfield's work also examines microbial ecology and evolution, with current field projects taking place at various sites including Iron Mountain and Angelo Reserve in Northern California, as well as Rifle East River in Colorado and Crystal Geyser in Utah. Her research interests encompass mineralogy, environmental geochemistry, and nanogeoscience, emphasizing the development of bioinformatics methods to investigate microbial diversity using DNA sequencing and geochemical data, as well as analyzing the impacts of organisms on their environments.

Research Interests