Jennifer Pett-Ridge
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff, Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Director and Lead Scientist, LLNL Carbon Initiative
Principal Investigator: Microbes Persist - DOE Soil Microbiome SFA, Terraforming Soil - DOE Energy Earthshot Research Center
Adjunct Full Professor, Life & Environmental Sciences Department, UC Merced
Investigator, Innovative Genomics Institute, UC Berkeley
Contact 925-424-2882
pettridge2 [at] llnl.gov (pettridge2[at]llnl[dot]gov)
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Ph.D. Soil Microbial Ecology, University of California, Berkeley (Dec 2005)
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Dissertation: Rapidly Fluctuating Redox Regimes Frame the Ecology of Microbial Communities and Their Biogeochemical Function in a Humid Tropical Soil (Advisor: Mary Firestone)
M.F.S. (Masters in Forest Science), Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science (May 1996)
Thesis: Effects of Substrate and Microclimate Change on the Survival and Growth of Guzmania berteroniana in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico (Advisors: T. Siccama; W.L. Silver)
B.A. Biology; B.A. Studies in the Environment (double major), Yale University (May 1994)
Thesis: Impact of Human Visitation Rates on Diversity and Community Structure of Invertebrates in West Virginia and New York Cave Ecosystems (Advisor: Charles Remington)
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS
Director of the LLNL Carbon Initiative and Lead of the Carbon Uptake Pillar, Jennifer Pett-Ridge is a senior staff scientist who studies climate change effects on soil biogeochemistry and environmental microbial communities. Currently, her group is focused on the role of microbial ecophysiology, redox, and rhizosphere plant-microbe-mineral interactions in shaping soil carbon persistence. She has also pioneered the use of NanoSIMS isotopic imaging in the fields of microbial biology and soil biogeochemistry. As the lead of LLNL’s Soil Microbiome Science Focus Area and Terraforming Soil DOE Energy Earthshot Research Center, she helps coordinate multi-disciplinary teams that integrate biogeochemistry, stable isotope probing, NanoSIMS imaging, molecular microbial ecology and computational modeling to understand biotic interactions and energy flow in microbial communities, and the processes that drive soil carbon CO2 removal and persistence. She manages a portfolio of over $50 million in DOE, NSF, NASA and other funding, and mentors a group of staff scientists, postdocs and graduate students working on terrestrial carbon cycling, plant-soil interactions, and development of new isotope tracing methods. She collaborates frequently with scientists at other research institutions, has published over 150 peer-review articles, and is an Adjunct Full Professor in the Life and Environmental Sciences Department at UC Merced and Investigator at the UC Berkeley Innovative Genomics Institute. Pett-Ridge is a recipient of a DOE Early Career award (2014), Geochemical Society Endowed Biogeochemistry Medal (2019), Secretary of Energy Achievement Award (2021), the DOE Office of Science Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (2022), and the 2023 Deborah A Neher Career Award from the Ecological Society of America Soil Ecology Section.
