Susanne Menden-Deuer is an oceanographer and marine scientist known for her work on marine food webs, including their structure and function. As of 2022, she is president-elect of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

Education and career

Menden-Deuer received her Diplom in 1996 from the University of Bonn. She went on to receive an M.Sc. (1998) and a Ph.D. (2004) from the University of Washington.^[1] Following her Ph.D. Menden-Deuer worked at Princeton University and Western Washington University. She moved to the University of Rhode Island in 2008, and was promoted to professor in 2017.^[1]

In 2022, the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography announced Menden-Deuer as president-elect for the society.^[2]

Research

Menden-Deuer is known for her work on the motility of plankton and their production. Her early work presented carbon-to-volume relationships for small marine organisms,^[3] a paper with Evelyn Lessard that was recognized in 2016 as one of the most highly cited papers in the journal Limnology and Oceanography.^[4] Subsequent work looked at foraging behavior by plankton organisms,^[5][6] and expanding methods used to quantify grazing activity in marine systems.^[7][8] Menden-Deuer and her student Elizabeth Harvey, determined that the phytoplankton Heterosigma akashiwo moves away from predators,^[9] a behavior not previously observed in phytoplankton.^[10][11]

As part of her work in the classroom, Menden-Deuer works with her students to edit Wikipedia.^[12]

Selected publications

• Menden-Deuer, Susanne; Lessard, Evelyn J. (2000). "Carbon to volume relationships for dinoflagellates, diatoms, and other protist plankton". Limnology and Oceanography. 45 (3): 569–579. Bibcode:2000LimOc..45..569M. doi:10.4319/lo.2000.45.3.0569. S2CID 86062906.
• Saldarriaga, Juan F.; “Max” Taylor, F. J. R.; Cavalier-Smith, Thomas; Menden-Deuer, Susanne; Keeling, Patrick J. (2004-05-18). "Molecular data and the evolutionary history of dinoflagellates". European Journal of Protistology. 40 (1): 85–111. doi:10.1016/j.ejop.2003.11.003. hdl:2429/16056. ISSN 0932-4739.
• Menden-Deuer, S; Lessard, Ej; Satterberg, J (2001). "Effect of preservation on dinoflagellate and diatom cell volume, and consequences for carbon biomass predictions". Marine Ecology Progress Series. 222: 41–50. Bibcode:2001MEPS..222...41M. doi:10.3354/meps222041. ISSN 0171-8630.
• Deuer, Susanne Menden; Grünbaum, Daniel (2006). "Individual foraging behaviors and population distributions of a planktonic predator aggregating to phytoplankton thin layers". Limnology and Oceanography. 51 (1): 109–116. Bibcode:2006LimOc..51..109D. doi:10.4319/lo.2006.51.1.0109. S2CID 16232161.
• Menden-Deuer, S; Lessard, Ej; Satterberg, J; Grünbaum, D (2005). "Growth rates and starvation survival of three species of the pallium-feeding, thecate dinoflagellate genus Protoperidinium". Aquatic Microbial Ecology. 41: 145–152. doi:10.3354/ame041145. ISSN 0948-3055.

Awards and honors

In 2015, Menden-Deuer was named a fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, and in 2020 was named a sustaining fellow.^[13] She received the Hutner Award, named after Seymour Hutner, from the International Society of Protistologists in 2015.^[14][15]