Frederick Colwell

Frederick S. Colwell is a Professor at the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. He is also part of the University’s Subsurface Biosphere Initiative and a co-PI on the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program for the Deep Subsurface Biosphere.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Colwell was a scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where he served as the Biology Discipline Lead for the INL’s Subsurface Science Initiative. At INL his research involved subsurface microbial communities; geomicrobiology; coupling of microbial rates and processes to physical and chemical parameters in the environment; sensing and monitoring of microbes; methods for sampling the earth’s subsurface for microorganisms and; bioremediation. He also served as the co-convener of the 2005 Joint International Symposia for Subsurface Microbiology and Environmental Biographical Sketches as of July 2008 Biogeochemistry and as a Scientist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California. Dr. Colwell received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Whitman College (1977), his Master of Science in Microbiology from Northern Arizona University (1982), and his PhD in Microbiology from Virginia Tech (1986).

He has three patents and one R&D 100 Award for the development of the Biocube Aerobic Biofilter. He has authored or co-authored over 50 peer review publications and is currently co-editing a special issue of the Geomicrobiology Journal.

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