Brandi Letter

To Whom It May Concern: This letter is written in support of Brandi Kiel Reese for the NSF EAPSI Research Fellowship. I have known Brandi for approximately 2 years and have been very impressed with her work ethic. I am currently on her Ph.D. committee and have had her take one of my graduate classes where she scored an “A.” During my time working with her, she has shown a great passion for learning and advancing her scientific career through tackling new challenges. Brandi’s principal advisor was Dr. John Morse who recently and unexpectedly passed away, this tragedy has been very traumatic for all of us. Dr. Heath Mills, who served as co-advisor when Dr. Morse was alive now assumes the sole role of advisor for Brandi’s Ph.D work. Brandi worked on the pure geochemical aspect of her work with Dr. Morse and the microbiological with Heath Mills. This multifaceted project has proved to be challenging for her but completely within her capabilities as she is exemplary at multitasking and has an unwavering drive to succeed that is above and beyond her peers. Her research accomplishments thus far include four publications, including three in which she is first-author. She has two additional publications, one in review and one in prep. She has presented her research in numerous venues, including several international meetings. Brandi was invited to give talks this summer at Aarhus University Center for Geomicrobiology (Aarhus, Denmark) and the Max Plank Institute for Marine Microbiology (Bremen, Germany). In addition, Brandi was selected as a United States delegate to the Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany. These experiences are unmatched by her peers and provides Brandi with the chance to compare her work progress, effort and goals against the best in the world. The fact that she excelled at these meetings and received high praise speaks volumes to her future success potential. Brandi’s first publication in my lab (in press) was completed in her first semester with me. She refined a long utilized method for measuring the concentration of hydrogen sulfide in marine sediments. Her meticulous work on this project provided the confidence I needed to publish this work, demonstrating faults in the original method. She has continued this high-level focus and standard of work with my Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia project. She has been able to handle a very large set of samples, processing them in a timely and accurate fashion. The data she produced has been novel and will be presented in a very strong publication. The proposal she has written here to do work in Japan represents a very well thought out, detailed new line of research that will provide answers to questions uncovered during her initial work in the Gulf. I am confident that she will be able to complete the geochemistry listed and support her efforts completely. This work will greatly aid in the completion of her dissertation.