Laura Wegener Parfrey, is fascinated by microbial diversity and enjoys exploring many facets of our microbial world. She got her scientific start investigating the eukaryotic tree of life during her PhD at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and carries this phylogenetic perspective into all aspects of research. During her postdoc at the University of Colorado she became interested in the microbial communities associated with animals, particularly in the vertebrate gut. Now at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, the Parfrey lab investigates the diversity and distribution of microbial eukaryotes (protists) and bacteria across environments, particularly those that are host-associated. We are broadly interested in understanding the factors the structure microbial communities, and in the interplay between microbial eukaryotes and bacteria. Our mammalian microbiome research strives to describe the normal community of eukaryotic microbes that are found in the mammalian gut, and the consequences of losing this diversity in our modern world.
Vancouver, BC, Canada