People

Michael Beman, Associate Professor

mbeman <at> ucmerced.edu

Mike received a B.S. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Stanford in Geological and Environmental Sciences.  Before joining the UC Merced faculty in 2009, he was a postdoc in Marine Environmental Biology at USC, a lecturer at UCLA, and an Assistant Researcher at the University of Hawai’i.  He is a member of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI) and the Environmental Systems and Quantitative and Systems Biology Graduate groups, and teaches classes in Biology, Environmental Systems, and Environmental Systems Science.  Since early 2023, Mike has also served as Chief Scientific Officer/scientific advisor for an early stage carbon dioxide removal (CDR) start-up funded and accelerated by IndieBio.  He is currently chair of the Academic Senate’s finance (CAPRA) committee and the Environmental Systems graduate group.  

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Fidel Machado-Perez, Ph.D. student

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Shari Larsen, Ph.D. student

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Jose Duque, Ph.D. student

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Former members

Jesse Wilson was a Ph.D. student who worked in Palau and Monterey Bay.  He also worked on the PacX Challenge and helped out with just about anything and everything in the lab.  He completed a postdoc in the Bowman Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and is now a professor in the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.  

Elisabet Perez-Coronel completed her Ph.D. in the middle of the pandemic(!), focussing on methane in high elevation lakes in Yosemite.  She was a UC MEXUS and ISEECI (Institute for the Study of Ecological and Evolutionary Climate Impacts) fellow, was awarded with the VESR (UC Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve) graduate student grant for her Ph.D. research, and attended several international workshops such as the Hopkins Microbiology Course in 2015, SOLAS (Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study) summer school in 2018, and the Sao Paulo School of Advance Methane Science in 2018.  Her influential work on aerobic methane production was published in Nature Communications in 2022.  She currently works for ThermoFisher Scientific.    

Jorge Armando Montiel Molina completed his Ph.D. in 2021 working in the amazing Merced Vernal Pools and Grasslands Reserve and beyond.  He received a CONACyT-UC MEXUS fellowship, and his work was supported by many other sources.  He is currently a postdoc in Paul Carini’s amazing lab group at U of A.  

Brandon Genco was a Ph.D. student who worked up our cruise data in the wake of Category 4 Hurricane Bud, and also completed some remote sensing analyses.  Along with Margot White‘s analysis of subsurface data, Irina Koester’s amazing organic matter data, and our microbial data, we put together our Science Advances paper on the multiple biogeochemical effects of Bud.  

Frank Gutierrez completed his Ph.D. in 2024 diving deeply into our metagenomic dataset from the eastern tropical North Pacific (ETNP).  He recently published his first paper and is starting a teaching position soon!

Sonia Vargas completed her Ph.D. in 2025 working a little bit on all the things, and incredibly deeply on some deep things—specifically our deep sediment cores from beneath the ETNP, as well as data from the Census of Deep Life (CoDL)! 

Susan Alford was a The Best Lab Tech Ever from 2009-2010.

Matt Meyerhof conducted his research in Palau and received his M.S. degree in 2011.  

Curtis Hayden conducted his research in Yosemite and received his M.S. degree in 2014.

Molly Carolan worked on sequencing and transcriptomic analysis of ETNP data and received her M.S. degree in 2014.

Ari Cairo worked on various aspects of our ETNP project and received her M.S. degree in 2018.

Kelly Henry was a postdoc in the lab from 2013-2014.  She lead preliminary research at Bodega Marine Lab and worked on nitrogen cycling in Palau.

Sang Park was a Harvard undergraduate who was part of the Yosemite REU program in summer 2010. 

Scott Williams was a UCM undergraduate student who worked in the lab from 2010-2011. 

Julia Cline was a UCM undergraduate student who worked in Yosemite in 2011.

Elizabeth Perkins was a UCM undergraduate student working in Yosemite in 2011.  

Rodney Severson was a UCM undergraduate who worked in the lab for several years and was instrumental in our work on the ‘PacX Challenge’ published in 2014.

Victoria Velez was a UC Davis undergraduate who was part of the Yosemite REU program in summer 2013.

Adrienne Harris was a UCM undergraduate who worked on various topics in the lab for several years.

Koreana Pak was a Haverford undergraduate who was part of the Yosemite REU program in summer 2014.

Mark Reynolds was a UCM undergraduate student working in Yosemite in 2014.  He went on to complete his Ph.D. at Arizona State and is now a postdoc in the Ruff Lab at MBL.  

Daniela Alonso was a UCM undergraduate student who worked in the lab for many years on many projects!  She also braved the waters of the eastern tropical North Pacific (ETNP) to help us on a research cruise in 2017.

Angela Yu was a UCM undergraduate who continued on as a laboratory technician.  She also went to sea in 2017, and then played a key role in processing hundreds of samples from the ETNP.

Samantha Vazquez was also a UCM undergraduate student who continued on as a laboratory technician.  She played a key role in processing samples from the ETNP and was also heavily involved in data analysis.

DeVonyo Bills was a UCM undergraduate student who also braved the waters of the ETNP to help us on a research cruise in 2017.