Miah is Ph.D. candidate in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program and is advised by Dr. Harriet Alexander. Miah’s current research investigates the “phycosphere”, which can be thought of as the microbiome surrounding phytoplankton cells. She uses bioinformatic and lab-based approaches to answer a few key questions: What types of bacteria are colonizing the phycosphere? And what benefits or drawbacks do they provide their phytoplankton host? Broadly, Miah’s work aims to better understand how marine bacteria impact phytoplankton ecology and physiology and how these two kingdoms are interconnected in cycling organic carbon. Miah went to Rutgers University earning a BA in Biology and minoring in Marine Science. Miah’s past research includes studying phytoplankton composition changes along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) as part of the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research Project (Pal-LTER). She also studied the photophysiological response of Karenia brevis, the algae associated with Florida Red Tides, to bloom mitigation compounds at the Mote Marine Laboratory.