Suzana Gonçalves Leles

Suzana Gonçalves Leles is an oceanographer with a background in microbial ecology. Her research focuses on the diverse lifestyles of marine microbes, as well as their distribution and impact on ecosystem functioning. She uses models and data to study the ecological niches and biogeography of protists and how these microbes influence nutrient cycling at regional and global scales. Her work addresses both ecological and evolutionary responses of microbial communities to a rapidly changing ocean. By combining theory, numerical modeling, and empirical data, she investigates fine-scale cellular processes that shape ecosystems and drive large-scale biogeochemical patterns. She conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California, including as a Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. from Swansea University in the United Kingdom and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.