Rate My Professor Ferran Garcia-Pichel

Ferran Garcia-Pichel is Regents Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, focusing on Biology. He earned a Licenciatura con Grado from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1986, a Master's of Arts from the University of Oregon in 1988, and a Ph.D. in Biology (Microbiology) from the University of Oregon in 1992. Following postdoctoral research at the University of Oregon and as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Associate Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany from 1993 to 1999, he joined ASU in 2000 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology. He advanced to Associate Professor in 2002, Professor in 2006, and was named Regents Professor in 2021. Garcia-Pichel served as Dean of Natural Sciences from 2013 to 2018, Director of the Graduate Program in Microbiology from 2006 to 2010, and Editor of FEMS Microbiology Reviews from 2006 to 2012.

Garcia-Pichel's research explores the roles, adaptations, and impacts of microbes in natural environments from desert soils to shallow marine waters, including biological soil crusts, sunscreen compound production, carbonate dissolution, and hydrogen production capabilities. He teaches advanced microbiology, microbial ecology, and geomicrobiology. Among his honors are the 2023 Theodore M. Sperry Award, 2020 D.C. White Award from the American Society for Microbiology, election to Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (2010), Ecological Society of America and American Geophysical Union (2021), and the Virginia M. Ullman Professor for the Environment (2014). Key publications include "Evidence for an ultraviolet sunscreen role of the extracellular pigment scytonemin in the terrestrial cyanobacterium Chlorogloeopsis sp." (1992), "Characterization and biological implications of scytonemin, a cyanobacterial sheath pigment" (1991), and "The Microbiology of Biological Soil Crusts" (Annual Review of Microbiology, 2023). His work, with over 23,000 Google Scholar citations, has advanced microbial ecology and restoration science.