Dr Ry Holland

@rythemicroguy.bsky.social

579 Followers 502 Following

Microbial Ecologist 🦠 Research Fellow | Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future | Greening Lab | Monash University Curious about the extremes of life 🏔️❄🌋🌊🏜️ they/them 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ linktr.ee/sophie.i.holland

A photograph of a framed A4 award for the BDI ECR Career Development Award
A photograph of Ry standing on Canada Glacier in Antarctica, in a traditional explorer pose holding an ice axe.
A figure from the review paper listing methods for assessing plastic biodegradation. They are grouped into three clusters: physical changes, chemical changes, and products produced/consumed.
Creativity experts Laura and Mon dressed in polar explorer gear in front of three yellow tents.
A figure from the paper showing how contamination can appear in microbiome data during sampling, DNA extraction, and Library preparation and sequencing steps.
A screenshot of the Nature Microbiology website showing the journal cover - me in a cleansuit, gloves, and dark snow goggles attaching a filter to an air sampling unit. Text reads: Guidelines for low-biomass microbiomes. Pictured here, Sophie Holland attaches a filter to an air sampler to study the atmospheric microbiome of Somoveken Glacier in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. The pristine environment and incredibly low atmospheric biomass require multiple precautions to avoid sample contamination, including wearing full personal protective equipment over warm weather gear. In this issue, Fierer, Greening and colleagues working on host-associated and environmental microbiomes present guidelines and best practices for studying low-biomass microbiomes in a Consensus Statement. See Fierer et al. Image: Braydon Moloney. Cover design: Laoise Mac Gabhann"
Sophie stands on a barren ridge in Antarctica, holding a trans flag. A glacier and snow-covered mountains lie in the background.
A photo of Sophie behind a podium, in front of a projector screen with their title slide "My life as a scientist".
Sophie stands on the snow at Wolf's Fang Runway in Antarctica. The sky is bright blue and there are mountains in the background.
A table covered in lots of food packets including museli, chocolate, Nutella, and powdered milk.
A group of African penguins lounge around on sand and rocks at Cape Town Aquarium
A view across the Cape Town waterfront to Table Mountain. There is a harbour with boats and shops on the wharves in the foreground. It's dusk and there are no clouds in the sky.
A view from an airplane of where the white Antarctic ice sheet meets the blue Southern Ocean, with some of the plane wing visible.
Sophie, dressed in warm winter clothing, holds a trans flag on the summit of a hill in Antarctica.