Scientific Colloquium
November 16, 2016, 3:30 p.m., Building 3 Auditorium


"The Unnatural History of Plastic Marine Debris"  

Plastic has become the most common form of marine debris in the 60 years or so since it entered the consumer arena and presents a major and growing pollution problem. A material of immense utility and durability, plastic has integrated seamlessly into our everyday lives. However, these favorable properties have also enabled plastic debris to fully integrate into the marine environment - from microscopic to macroscopic scales. Paradoxically, this persistent and abundant material presents a unique challenge to track once it escapes the waste stream. Work in my laboratory, together with collaborators, has focused on the first-order question, “What is the fate of plastic debris once it enters the marine environment?” Overall, this research has long-term aims to provide a perspective on tracking and understanding plastic debris export mechanisms that will enable an ocean-wide budget to aid scientists and policy makers and inform the general public.

About the Speaker:

Tracy John Mincer was born in Indiana and spent most of his childhood in Alaska. A first-generation college student, Mincer attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks sporadically and transferred to the University of California, San Diego in 1991—graduating in 1995 with a B.S. in Chemistry/Biochemistry. Post-graduation he worked as a technician from 1995-1998 in the laboratory of Professor Donald Helinski at University of California, San Diego in the field of microbial genetics. Mincer received his Ph.D. in Marine Chemistry in 2004 from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography working in the laboratory of Professor William Fenical in the field of marine microbial natural products. From 2004-2008 he was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Professor Edward DeLong, working in the field of microbial metagenomics. He has been a faculty member of the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since the summer of 2008. Research in the Mincer laboratory is focused on: 1) understanding the fate of plastic marine debris and its associations with microbes, 2) microbial production of volatile organic carbon compounds and their role in geochemical cycling, and 3) microbial chemical ecology and natural products discovery.

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