Alice Alldredge is an American oceanographer and marine biologist who studies marine snow, carbon cycling, microbes and plankton in the ecology of the ocean. She has been one of the most cited scientific researchers since 2003.[1]
Alice Louise Alldredge was born in 1949 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She graduated from Merrit Hutton High School in Thornton, Colorado, and completed an undergraduate degree in biology at Carleton College in 1971. Her father was an inspiration to her interest in science and her mother was a role-model as well.[2]
Alldredge discovered the existence of abundant gel particles called Transparent Exopolymer
Particles (TEP)[3] and demersal zooplankton, describing their migration and dispersion throughout coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and tidal sandflats.[1] She is an authority on marine snow,[4] the particles which settle to the bottom of the oceans, and the cycling in the sea of carbon.[3] Through her work on marine snow, Alldredge changed the understanding of particle flux and she made the first quantification of observed sinking rates of marine snow, "showing that marine snow sinks rapidly enough to deliver significant amounts of organic carbon to the deep [sea]".[1]
In addition to her teaching and research at UC-Santa Barbara, Alldredge works at the Mo'orea Coral Reef as a researcher with the LTER Study in Mo'orea, French Polynesia studying the currents and forces effecting water transport of the island. In addition to evaluating the biological effect of zooplankton and fish on the reef, scientists are evaluating the biochemical characteristics and differences between waters over the reef and offshore waters.[5] Alldredge has been credited for her role in UC-Santa Barbara's ranking as 7th best university worldwide based on its global scientific impact and collaboration record.[6] She is in the top 0.1% of the ISI Web of Knowledge's highly cited researchers and has remained there since 2003.[1]
Alldredge became the chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC-Santa Barbara in 2004.[3]
Characteristics, dynamics and significance of marine snow. Alice L Alldredge and Mary W Silver. 1988. Progress in Oceanography.[8]
Intense hydrolytic enzyme activity on marine aggregates and implications for rapid particle dissolution. David C Smith, Meinhard Simon, Alice L Alldredge, and Farooq Azam. 1992. Nature.[9]
Phylogenetic diversity of aggregate‐attached vs. free‐living marine bacterial assemblages. Edward F DeLong, Diana G Franks and Alice L Alldredge. 1993. Limnology and Oceanography.[10]
The oceanic gel phase: a bridge in the DOM–POM continuum. Pedro Verdugo, Alice L Alldredge, Farooq Azam, David L Kirchman, Uta Passow, Peter H Santschi. 2004. Marine Chemistry.[12]
