Kim Handley

Dr Kim Handley is an environmental microbiologist and Senior Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Auckland, and a Royal Society of NZ Rutherford Discovery Fellow. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2008, where she studied microbial respiratory diversity in hydrothermal marine sediment. This was followed by postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied microbial community interactions in the terrestrial subsurface. Her research focuses on understanding the metabolic capabilities and evolution of natural microbial communities, and the role of these communities in biogeochemical cycling in aquatic and sedimentary environments. She uses environmental genomics and related functional omic techniques to determine the lifestyles of uncultivated microorganisms and community-wide interactions. Dr Handley is currently collaborating with Professor Kathleen Campbell (inaugural Director of Te Ao Mārama – Centre for Fundamental Inquiry) on a project to determine the biological influence on the formation of terrestrial, digitate, silica-rich hot spring deposits morphologically analogous to those discovered by the Spirit rover on Mars. The project aims to identify the microbial associations with these sinters; determine the role these organisms play in structuring the sinters; and understand the functional relationship of microbial communities supported by these systems. Dr Handley’s current research also includes understanding biological processes and genetic novelty in estuaries and aquifers, and she is the environmental metagenomics project lead for Genomics Aotearoa – a collaborative national platform for genomics and bioinformatics research. ​