Smruthi Karthikeyan

~99% of the observed microbial diversity in the environment remain uncultured. Hence, it's crucial to look at microbial systems as a whole to understand the underlying interactions between microbes and their physicochemical environments to be able to successfully tailor responses to environmental perturbations. Our lab develops integrated, culture-independent, laboratory and computational tools that mine this "microbial dark matter" or the "uncultivated majority" to disentangle complex microbial community level interactions and structuring. The lab's research interests lie at the interface of microbiology, computational biology and microbial ecology. We use a combination of isotopic tracer-based mass spectrometry and imaging along with ‘meta-omic' techniques to probe ecophysiology of microbial community assemblages in their natural environment. The overarching goals of the lab's research is to broaden understanding of the genetic and metabolic diversity of the microorganisms to better manage ecosystem function, the value of this biodiversity for adaptation to anthropogenic perturbations and causing or preventing disease in humans.

She was a GoMRI (Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative) scholar from 2016-2019. She won the 2018 James D Watkins student award for excellence in research instituted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and the ASM (American Society for Microbiology) Student award in 2019. She was selected as a 2019 MIT Rising Star in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She was also chosen as one of ten "Scientists to Watch" in Science News SN10 in 2022.

Her research has been highlighted on CBS 60 minutes, TIME Magazine, Forbes, NBC Nightly News, Reuters, The New York Times, CNN, The Conversation, JAMA, Nature, Science, NIH, NSF Highlights amongst others.