STEPS Scholar Dr. Geisianny Moreira Awarded Director’s Fellowship
We are pleased to announce STEPS Scholar Geissianny Moreira, Ph.D. of Clemson University is our second recipient of the STEPS Center Director’s Fellowship Award. Dr. Moreira is a Postdoctoral Researcher in PI Dr. Eric McLamore’s lab conducting a comparative study for understanding emerging materials used in reagent-free phosphorus sensing.
This award will provide Dr. Moreira the opportunity to build core competencies in material and environmental sciences, bioengineering, social and humanities sciences, transdisciplinary training and to work with multiple STEPS PIs and build a strong network. As the awardee, she says she hopes to “integrate engineering and social fields to effectively bring STEPS to communities at different levels of interest.”
Dr. Moreira enjoys that the STEPS project focuses on technologies capable of phosphorus tracking in environmental samples. Since becoming a STEPS Scholar in December 2022, Geisianny says she has learned about the importance of sustainable phosphorus management and how different groups are working effectively to develop technologies to recover and reuse P. As a member of STEPS, she has also enjoyed attending seminars that address stakeholders and learning how to engage stakeholders in technological development for sustainable P management. Dr. Moreira says being a STEPS Scholar has encouraged her to go beyond her expertise and broaden her professional goals, such as the opportunity to learn and collaborate with social science PIs like Dr. Anna Maria Marshal.
Dr. Moreira received her Bachelor’s in Biological Sciences and went on to get her Master’s and Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Brasilia, Brazil (UnB). Her research endeavors began as a sophomore undergraduate student where she focused on geology, histology, cell culture, acarology, mycology, microbiology, and botany. As a graduate student, her research continued with a focus on soil microbiome diversity and ecology in Brazilian ecosystems. Overall, her research developed her understanding of microbial diversity and what it “tells us about changes in vegetation, changes in soil, environmental conditions, and human interference in the soil.”
Geisianny then joined Clemson University as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Engineering, Environmental, and Earth Sciences, where she worked on projects to develop biomedical research in bioengineering and biosystems. As a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Agricultural Sciences at Clemson University, working on STEPS Theme 2 with Dr. McLamore, she is developing electrochemical and optical sensors for monitoring phosphorus in environmental aqueous samples.
In the future, she hopes to be an “Afro-Latin American woman in a faculty position in an outstanding academic and research environment university; to produce meaningful multidisciplinary research based adopting nature-inspired strategies based on microorganisms-biomolecule-environment interactions to develop technologies/technique/processes for promoting planetary health; to offer research/academic opportunities for women in vulnerable situations (afro descendants, indigenous and low-income regions); to deploy accessible technologies to empower people in vulnerable situations and/or impacted by environmental issues.”
Congratulations, Dr. Moreira! To learn more about the Director’s Fellowship, click here.
