Steven D\u2019Hondt, professor and interim dean of URI GSO, was elected an American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AGU is the world\u2019s largest Earth and space science association. Since the inception of the AGU\u2019s Fellow program in 1962, less than 0.1% of AGU\u2019s members have been selected as Fellows each year. D\u2019Hondt is one of 52 individuals in the 2025 Class of Fellows<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to be recognized by the American Geophysical Union in this way,\u201d said D\u2019Hondt. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for the honor, but I\u2019m even more grateful for the many collaborators with whom I\u2019ve worked who made it possible for me to be considered for this prestigious honor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u2019Hondt considers himself an oceanographer whose primary expertise is in the areas of biogeochemistry and geobiology. His research often occurs at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and geology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u2019Hondt has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal publications and about 20 book chapters and scientific perspectives. He has led multiple oceanographic expeditions, with teams ranging from 22 to 55 scientists continuously at sea for up to 68 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of D\u2019Hondt\u2019s proudest accomplishments was a study he conducted in 2002 with fellow URI oceanography researchers Scott Rutherford and Art Spivack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe demonstrated that per-cell respiration rates are orders of magnitude lower in subseafloor sediment than in the surface world,\u201d said D\u2019Hondt. Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another highlight of D\u2019Hondt\u2019s career was the work he and his collaborators contributed through Ocean Drilling Program Leg 201<\/a>, the first deep-sea drilling expedition focused primarily on life beneath the seafloor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe project demonstrated that diverse communities and diverse energy-yielding activities occur in deeply buried marine sediment,\u201d said D\u2019Hondt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2012, a URI research team that included D\u2019Hondt demonstrated that there are globally as many microbial cells in marine sediment<\/a> as there are in seawater and soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe study synthesized data from our many expeditions to understand the distribution of life in marine sediment,\u201d stated D\u2019Hondt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In URI\u2019s Geobiology Field Laboratory, D\u2019Hondt and his students examine fundamental topics in geobiology, with a particular focus on subseafloor life. They analyze the composition and diversity of microbial communities in seawater and sediment, and they study the metabolic activities of subseafloor communities, the structure of subseafloor ecosystems, and the processes that nourish subseafloor life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u2019Hondt\u2019s research group has conducted expeditions all over the world, including the Eastern Indian Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Northwest Atlantic, the Bering Sea, the equatorial Pacific, the South Pacific Gyre, Japan\u2019s Shimokita Peninsula, and the Nankai Through off Japan\u2019s southern coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AGU will recognize D\u2019Hondt and the other 2025 Fellows during the<\/a> <\/a>AGU25<\/a> conference in New Orleans, Louisiana from Dec. 15-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AGU Fellows are recognized for their scientific eminence, demonstrated through breakthroughs, discoveries or innovations that advance the Earth and space sciences. Fellows act as external experts, advising government agencies and other organizations outside the sciences upon request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AGU Fellows are recognized for their scientific eminence, demonstrated through breakthroughs, discoveries or innovations that advance the Earth and space sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4762,"featured_media":191281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[3122,897],"class_list":["post-191321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-agu","tag-steven-dhondt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191323,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191321\/revisions\/191323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}