Associate Professor 

3369 KHS 

Email: [email protected]

Education:

B.S. Microbiology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

B.S. Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Ph.D. Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Postdoc Associate, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI

Postdoc Associate, Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI

Courses Taught:

CMB 451 Bioinformatics: Tools and Techniques for Life Scientists

CMB 520 Laboratory Techniques in Cell and Molecular Biology

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, Microbial Ecology, Bacterial Genetics, Gene regulation, Disturbance, Virology

Microorganisms play a critical role in the health and functionality of our ecosystems, yet human impacts on the environment can drastically alter the structure and function of these microscopic yet diverse communities. Observing how these communities respond to environmental disturbances, particularly those caused by human activities such as land-use change and pollution, is important in understanding our impacts on the health of our environment and developing mitigation strategies and methods to enhance ecosystem recovery.

I am particularly interested in illuminating the genomic signatures of bacterial life history strategies, the physiological tradeoffs that drive ability of organisms to live and function in varying environments and communities. My work focuses on using bioinformatic tools to examine bacterial communities and genomes to link genes, regulation, and more to the ecology of microorganisms.

Publications:

Barnett SE, Shade A (2025). Soil viral community dynamics over seven years of heat disturbance: spatial variation exceeds temporal in annually sampled soils. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 203:109741. DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2025.109741

Barnett SE, Shade A (2024). Seven years of microbial community metagenomes from temperate soils affected by an ongoing coal seam fire. Microbiology Resource Announcements, 13:e00198-24. DOI: 10.1128/mra.00198-24

Barnett SE, Buckley DH (2023). Metagenomic stable isotope probing reveals bacteriophage participation in soil carbon cycling. Environmental Microbiology, 25:1785–1795. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16395

Barnett SE, Egan R, Foster B, Eloe-Fadrosh EA, Buckley DH (2023). Genomic features predict bacterial life history strategies in soil, as identified by metagenomic stable isotope probing. mBio, 14:e03584-22. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.03584-22

Barnett SE, Youngblut ND, Buckley DH (2022). Bacterial community dynamics explain carbon mineralization and assimilation in soils of different land-use history. Environmental Microbiology, 24:5230–5247. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16146

Barnett SE*, Youngblut ND*, Koechli CN, Buckley DH (2021). Multi-substrate DNA stable isotope probing reveals guild structure in bacterially mediated soil carbon cycling. PNAS, 118:e2115292118. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115292118

*Co-first author

Barnett SE, Buckley DH (2020). Simulating metagenomic stable isotope probing datasets with MetaSIPSim. BMC Bioinformatics, 21:37. DOI: 10.1186/s12859-020-3372-6

Kapili BJ, Barnett SE, Buckley DH, Dekas AE (2020) Evidence for phylogenetically and catabolically diverse active diazotrophs in deep-sea sediment. ISME Journal, 14:971–983. DOI: 10.1038/s41396-019-0584-8

Barnett SE, Youngblut ND, Buckley DH (2020) Soil characteristics and land-use drive bacterial community assembly patterns. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 96:fiz194. DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiz194

Muletz-Wolz CR, Barnett SE, DiRenzo GV, Zamudio KR, Toledo LF, James TY, Lips KR (2019). Diverse genotypes of the amphibian killing fungus produce distinct phenotypes through plastic responses to temperature. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 32:287–298. DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13413

Youngblut ND, Barnett SE, Buckley DH (2018). HTSSIP: An R package for analysis of high throughput sequencing data from nucleic acid stable isotope probing (SIP) experiments. PLoS ONE, 13:e0189616. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189616