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CORVALLIS - Stephen Giovannoni has been selected as the third recipient of the Emile F. Pernot Distinguished Professorship in Microbiology at Oregon State University.

The professorship is awarded for a five-year term to a professor in the OSU Department of Microbiology who is recognized as a distinguished contributor to the microbiological sciences.

Giovannoni plans to use this award to finance a fellowship for an exceptional graduate student whose research in the field of bioinformatics would be combined with teaching in a laboratory course in comparative genomics.

An international expert in the microbial flora of the open oceans, Giovannoni is interested in understanding the contributions these organisms make to nutrient cycles. His research involves a combination of genomics, proteomics and bacterial physiological studies that reveal the metabolic capabilities and ecology of ocean microbes. His collaboration with oceanographers and chemists has been done in research projects ranging from Bermuda to Antarctica.

Giovannoni received his doctorate from the University of Oregon in 1984 and has been on the OSU faculty since 1988.