Sarah Hu

Sarah Hu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on microbial ecology, biological oceanography, and data science, particularly exploring the ecological roles of protists in marine environments. She leads the Hu Lab, which examines protistan communities in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, coastal ecosystems, and transitional ocean zones. Her work integrates molecular approaches, computational biology, and microscopy to understand protist-driven biogeochemical processes.

Dr. Hu holds a B.S. in Aquatic & Fishery Sciences from the University of Washington (2011), a Ph.D. in Marine Environmental Biology from the University of Southern California (2018), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2018–2022). Her awards include the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018–2020) and the Katrina J. Edwards Memorial Dissertation Award (2018).

Her research investigates protistan trophic strategies (phototrophy, heterotrophy, mixotrophy), their roles in marine food webs, and their responses to environmental changes. Key projects include studying protist diversity at hydrothermal vents, analyzing protistan community dynamics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, and developing bioinformatic tools like EUKulele for taxonomic annotation.

Her lab’s research spans meta’omics, field experiments, and computational modeling, addressing questions about protist distribution, activity, and ecological impacts. Collaborative efforts focus on microbial interactions in extreme environments and improving methodologies for studying microbial eukaryotes.