Steven Baer

Background

About Steven Baer

I’m an Assistant Professor of Marine Science in the Corning School of Ocean Studies. I teach Introductory Chemistry (for non-majors), Organic Chemistry, and Marine Geochemistry, along with departmental seminars. In the past, I have taught chemistry and oceanography at The College of William & Mary, Christopher Newport University, and while a postdoctoral scholar at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, with students from Colby College. Additionally, I was an instructor for the KellerBLOOM program, which is an intensive, hands-on, week-long marine science program for high school juniors in the state of Maine.My background is in marine biogeochemistry and chemical oceanography and my research interests are focused on the interactions between phytoplankton diversity and major macronutrient (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus) cycling. I have extensive experience with wet lab and autoanalysis techniques for nutrient chemistry, along with being a highly advanced user of both imaging and high-speed sorting flow cytometry. I have run more chlorophyll analyses than I can count, and it was once calculated that I have identified (actually, killed) more than a trillion individual phytoplankton.Most of my shipboard experience is in the “blue” open ocean and the polar regions. I have participated in numerous research expeditions all over the world. I have experienced Arctic winter night at -70 degrees, heavy weather in the North Atlantic, and the doldrums of the equatorial Indian Ocean. I love going to work at sea, and I love science.