Dr. Newman’s interdisciplinary research focuses on elucidating mechanisms of bacterial energy conservation and survival when oxygen is scarce, with an emphasis on how redox-active extracellular electron shuttles sustain metabolically attenuated biofilms. The contexts that motivate her research span chronic human infections to the rhizosphere yet are linked by a basic curiosity about how a low power lifestyle is achieved. Dr. Newman earned her PhD in Environmental Engineering at MIT with Francois Morel and trained as a postdoc in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School with Roberto Kolter. She started her independent career at Caltech in 2000 and is currently the Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology. Her honors include the National Academy of Science’s Award in Molecular Biology and a MacArthur Fellowship, but she is most proud of her trainees, who have gone on to lead successful scientific careers in academia, industry, government, and the non-profit sector. Dr. Newman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society. Currently, she is leading the Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Initiative for Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute and serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.