Mara Freilich is a doctoral candidate in the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography working with Dr. Amala Mahadevan. She has a Bachelors of Science in Applied Math from Brown University. She studies physical oceanography and ocean microbial ecology – the distribution and diversity of microorganisms in the ocean, where microbes make up the majority of the biomass. In her research she uses numerical ocean models and does observational work at sea focusing on carbon flux in energetic ocean regions. Her work understanding the link between biological and physical processes involves developing methodologies for studying ecological processes in the context of environmental variability. For her work and its potential she has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, Grassle Fellowship, and National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
You can usually find Mara near the ocean, kayaking, or sailing. She is interested in fostering productive collaboration between researchers and social movements, for example to improve the response to climate change.