Debbie Kelley

Debbie Kelley will be Chief Scientist on this return cruise to Lost City. She is an associate professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington, and a member of the UW Astrobiology program. She has participated on over 20 seagoing research cruises using Alvin, and the remotely operated vehicles Jason, ROPOS, and Tiburon, and has spent several months aboard the Ocean Drilling Program ship the Resolution. During this cruise, in close collaboration with the other members of the science team and with support from the crew of the R/VAtlantis, she hopes to discover how Lost City formed, and how hydrothermal systems operate that are not associated with submarine volcanoes.

She will also be working closely with the microbiologists, and chemists to examine how novel organisms at Lost City are supported by rock alteration processes. She has also worked extensively on black smoker systems at the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and is a member of a team working to establish a fiber optic cabled observatory called NEPTUNE in the Northeast Pacific. Her research group currently includes an Oceanographer, five graduate students, and two undergraduates.