Jill Banfield

Jill Banfield is a Professor of Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental Science, Policy, & Management at the University of California, Berkeley with an appointments in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Jill is also the IGI’s Director of Microbiology where she leads pioneering research of microbial communities using approaches such as metagenomics and community proteomics.

Jill studied granite weathering for her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Australian National University. She then completed her Ph.D. for high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) studies of metamorphic reactions from Johns Hopkins University.

The Banfield lab studies the inter-organismal and environmental interactions of natural microbial communities using cultivation-independent approaches such as metagenomics and community proteomics. At the IGI, Jill is leading climate change research through genomic and chemical analysis of the soil microbes of rice paddies, with the ultimate aim of optimizing more long-term carbon storage in the soil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.