Marianne Haines

About Marianne

Marianne wants to use microbes to reimagine how future products and processes are created and accomplished. In her utopia, microbes—with their incredible capacity to produce useful materials and degrade wastes—are harnessed to improve the sustainability of many more of societies’ endeavors. She is a fierce proponent of the scientific method and is doggedly concerned with how research is done., i.e., is ‘process oriented’. She shares her enthusiasm for the applications of microbes by telling anyone who will listen including the impressionable minds of school students. Marianne has been involved in numerous paid and volunteer STEM events and outreach programs, from playdough with grade 2’s to ‘Careers in Science’ seminars for 100 high-school students. She believes that foundational science education is key to ‘keeping it real’—cultivating a skeptical and inquisitive outlook while avoiding the lure of quackery.

Marianne has a Bachelor of Biological Science majoring in Microbiology and Biochemistry from La Trobe University. In her Honours year she researched microbial fuel cells. Now in the Microbial Markets Lab at the University of Calgary, she specialises in microbial ecology, photobioreactor technology, alkaline soda lakes, and the pilot scale cultivation of microalgae.

Marianne is rounding out her PhD and looking for work at the intersection of industry and academia.