Colleen Hansel
Coral Long-core Drilling Team
Bio
Colleen Hansel, an Associate Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is a Microbial Geochemist whose research sits at the intersection of mineralogy, geochemistry, and biology. She is broadly interested in biomineralization and microbially mediated processes involved in the cycling of key elemental cycles in marine systems. Her research in coral reefs focuses on defining the controls on skeletal mineralization and on identifying the biogenic sources and sinks of reactive oxygen species (ROS) – short-lived oxygen radicals that control the health of corals through both beneficial and detrimental effects to animal and microbial physiology. Although poorly understood, these radicals have also been implicated as the trigger in coral bleaching.
