The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts recently featured the groundbreaking work of Assistant Professor of Biology Rosa León Zayas, who took her first dive in a deep-ocean research submersible named Alvin to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench.
León Zayas is a marine microbiologist whose research focuses on life forms in deep-sea trenches. Last year, she was awarded the annual Renjen Prize for Faculty Excellence for her outstanding work and remarkable promise and achievement as a scholar. That same year, she was among five scientists selected for the Maxwell/Hanrahan Field Biology Award for discovering how microbes survive in extreme conditions and for identifying genes that control important processes.