Grayson Boyer
PhD Candidate
GEOPIG • Arizona State University

Grayson is investigating how microbial community makeup and habitat geochemistry influence lipid compositions, with a specific focus on bacterial bacteriohopanepolyol lipid biomarkers in hydrothermal systems around the world. For this, he extracts lipids from sediments and microbial mats and correlates the resulting abundances to concurrent geochemical and phylogenetic data. He is also working on theoretical calculations to understand how the thermodynamic properties of lipids may influence the distribution and diagenesis of these biomolecules in the geologic record.