Biography

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Markel Gómez-Letona studied a B.Sc. in Marine Sciences (2012-2016) and a M.Sc. in Oceanography (2016-2017) at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC). After focusing on phytoplankton during his final B.Sc. and M.Sc. projects, he moved on to studying oceanic prokaryotic communities, and he spent two months at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) in Barcelona with a JAE-Intro grant from the "Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas" (CSIC).

 

In December 2017 he joined the Biological Oceanography Group (GOB) at the Institute of Oceanography and Global Change (IOCAG) as a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Marta Sebastián (ICM) and Dr. Javier Arístegui (GOB), and in mid-2018 he was granted a FPU scholarship by the Spanish Ministry of Education. For his Ph.D. he is continuing to study marine prokaryotes. As the engines that keep the global biogeochemical cycles moving, it is of vital importance to study their taxonomic and metabolic diversities and activity in the global ocean. In particular, his work focuses on how prokaryotic organisms interact with organic matter and how they affect carbon biogeochemical cycles. He is especially interested in studying prokaryotic communities in 1) regions affected by upwelling of nutrient-rich, deep waters, and 2) the dark ocean, which hosts the largest pool of reduced carbon on Earth.