Valerie De Anda is a Research Associate at the University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute using computational biology to understand the microbial ecology of the deep sea and other extreme environments.

Valerie received her Ph.D. in Microbial Ecology and her Bachelor’s in Biology from The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her research interests unite themes of microbial ecology, genomics, biochemistry, and computational biology.

Her current research efforts focus on expanding the tree of life by identifying unknown and ancient microbial lineages to provide a better understanding of the biogeochemistry and evolution of life on the planet.