David Valentine

Biography

David Valentine holds the Norris Presidential Endowed Chair in Earth Science, is the founding director of the Marine Science program in the College of Creative Studies, and is a Professor of Geochemistry and Microbiology, at UC Santa Barbara. He holds a BS in Biochemistry/Chemistry and an MS in Chemistry from UC San Diego, and an MS and PhD in Earth System Science from UC Irvine. He held an NSF postdoctoral fellowship in microbial biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and has been a professor at UC Santa Barbara since 2001. Professor Valentine is a Fellow of AAAS and of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program.

Research

Professor Valentine's research interests focus on the interaction of microbes and chemicals - how the smallest living beings impact Earth’s environment and how the environment structures the ecology and evolution of the microbes. His projects include study of Archaea, methane's biogeochemistry, hydrocarbon seeps and spills, accelerated microbial evolution, microbial symbiosis, ocean exploration, and the development of stable-isotope-based tools. Inspired by ocean discovery, Professor Valentine also transitions discoveries at the interface of microbiology and geochemistry toward microbial technology to address societal problems. Professor Valentine is also actively engaged in the communication of science beyond his peer group, through media and other stakeholders.

Selected Publications

Kivenson V, KL Lemkau, O Pizarro, DR Yoerger, C Kaiser, RK. Nelson, C Carmichael, BG Paul, CM Reddy, DL Valentine (2019) Ocean dumping of containerized DDT waste was a sloppy process Environmental Science and Technology 53(6) 2971-2980.

Paul, BG, D Burstein, CJ Castelle, S Handa, D Arambula, E Czornyj, BC Thomas, P Ghosh, JF Miller, JF Banfield, DL Valentine (2017) Retroelement guided protein diversification abounds in vast lineages of bacteria and archaea. Nature Microbiology 2, Article number: 17045 doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.45

Bagby SC, CM Reddy, C Aeppli, GB Fisher and DL Valentine (2017) Persistence and biodegradation of oil at the ocean floor following Deepwater Horizon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 114 (1) E9-E18.

BG Paul, SC Bagby, E Czornyj, D Arambula, S Handa, A Sczyrba, P Ghosh, JF Miller and DL Valentine (2015) Targeted diversity generation by intraterrestrial archaea and archaeal viruses. Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6585 doi:10.1038/ncomms7585

Valentine DL, G. Burch Fisher, SC Bagby, RK Nelson, CM Reddy, SP Sylva, and MA Woo (2014) Fallout plume of submerged oil from Deepwater Horizon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.111 (45) 15906-15911 doi/10.1073/pnas.1414873111

Valentine DL, I Mezić, S. Maćešić, N. Črnjarić-Žic, S. Ivić, P Hogan, V Fonoberov and S Loire (2012) Dynamic auto-inoculation and the microbial ecology of a deep water hydrocarbon irruption Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.1108820109.

Redmond MC and DL Valentine (2011) Natural gas and temperature structured a microbial community response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (50), 20292-20297. doi/10.1073/pnas.1108756108

Kessler JD, DL Valentine, MC Redmond, M Du, EW Chan, SD Mendes, EW Quiroz, CJ Villanueva, SS Shusta,LM. Werra, SA Yvon-Lewis, TC Weber (2011) A Persistent Oxygen Anomaly Reveals the Fate of Spilled Methane in the Deep Gulf of Mexico. Science (331) 312-315.

Valentine DL, JD Kessler, MC Redmond, SD Mendes, MB Heintz, C Farwell, L Hu, FS Kinnaman, S Yvon-Lewis, Mengran Du, EW Chan, F Garcia-Tigreros, CJ Villanueva (2010) Propane respiration jump starts microbial response to a deep oil spill, Science, 330, 208 (2010); DOI: 10.1126/science.1196830

Valentine, D.L. (2007) Adaptations to energy stress dictate the ecology and evolution of the Archaea. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 5 (4): 316-323, doi: 10.1038/nrmicro1619.