Mary Voytek

Key takeaways

Mary Voytek belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mary Voytek to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mary Voytek from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Dr. Mary A. Voytek is the Exobiology Branch Chief at NASA's Ames Research Center, and the former director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 2015, Voytek formed Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), a systems science initiative by NASA, to search for life on exoplanets. Voytek came to NASA from the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA, where she headed the USGS Microbiology and Molecular Ecology Laboratory from 1998 to 2009.

Education

B.A. in biology, Johns Hopkins University, 1980 M.S. in Biological Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, 1984 Ph.D. in Biology/Ocean Sciences, University of California, 1995 Postdoctoral Fellow, Rutgers University Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, 1995–1997

Research and Professional Activities Voytek's primary scientific interests are biogeochemistry and aquatic microbial ecology; more particularly, environmental controls on microbial transformations of nutrients, xenobiotics, and metals in freshwater and marine systems. She has worked in several extreme environments, including Antarctica, hypersaline lakes, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and terrestrial deep-subsurface sites. Voytek has conducted deep biosphere studies at the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure. Voytek was a staff scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (1987–1990) prior to completing her PhD at the University of Rhode Island. After her postdoc at Rutgers University she was a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Limnology in Plön, Germany from 1997 to 1998. Voytek joined the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Research Program in 1998 where she led the Microbiology and Molecular Ecology team until 2009. She was an invited scholar for the German-American Frontiers of Science (1997 and 2001), and she received a USGS Superior Service Award in 2005. She took charge of the NASA Astrobiology Program on September 15, 2008, as Interim Senior Scientist for Astrobiology in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. Voytek has been a member of the American Geophysical Union since 1990, and she served as the secretary of the AGU Biogeosciences section from 2004 to 2006 and was the Biogeosciences section meeting chair from 2003 to 2006. She is currently a board member of the American Geophysical Union. Voytek is also a member of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) (1984 to present) and the American Society of Microbiology (1991 to present). She has served on several advisory groups to Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and NASA, including the Planetary Protection Subcommittee. She has also supported NASA's Astrobiology Program serving as a NASA representative to a number of COSPAR convened studies exploring the potential for life in the universe. She has held positions in several science societies. In December 2010, she defended a news release of NASA on the possibility there might be a principally wider basis of life than so far assumed, following conclusions of a study by Felisa Wolfe-Simon on the arsenic-eating bacterium GFAJ-1, as presenting a "phenomenal finding".

Publications Voytek has been an author or co-author on over 70 peer-reviewed publications in interdisciplinary journals. Her top 5 most cited publications are:

Groffman, PM; Altabet, MA; Böhlke, JK; Butterbach-Bahl, K; David, MB; Firestone, MK; Giblin, AE; Kana, TM; Nielsen, LP; Voytek, MA (2006). "Methods for measuring denitrification: diverse approaches to a difficult problem". Ecol Appl. 16 (6): 2091–122. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.550.1423. doi:10.1890/1051-0761(2006)016[2091:mfmdda]2.0.co;2. PMID 17205891. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help). Priscu, J.C.; Adams, E.E.; Lyons, W.B.; Voytek, M.A.; Mogk, D.W.; Brown, R.L.; McKay, C.P.; Takacs, C.D.; Welch, K.A.; Wolf, C.F.; Kirshtein, J.D. (1999). "Geomicrobiology of subglacial ice above Lake Vostok, Antarctica". Science. 286 (5447): 2141–2144. doi:10.1126/science.286.5447.2141. PMID 10591642. Wallenstein, MD; Myrold, DD; Firestone, M; Voytek, M (2006). "Environmental controls on denitrifying communities and denitrification rates: insights from molecular methods". Ecol Appl. 16 (6): 2143–52. doi:10.1890/1051-0761(2006)016[2143:ecodca]2.0.co;2. PMID 17205893.. Voytek, MA; Ward, BB (1995). "Detection of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria of the beta-subclass of the class Proteobacteria in aquatic samples with the PCR". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 61 (7): 1444–1450. Bibcode:1995ApEnM..61.1444V. doi:10.1128/AEM.61.4.1444-1450.1995. PMC 167558. PMID 7618898. Reysenbach, A.L.; Liu, Y.; Banta, A.B.; Beveridge, T.J.; Kirshtein, J.D.; Schouten, S.; Tivey, M.K.; Von Damm, K.L.; Voytek, M.A. (2006). "A ubiquitous thermoacidophilic archaeon from deep-sea hydrothermal vents". Nature. 442 (7101): 444–447. Bibcode:2006Natur.442..444R. doi:10.1038/nature04921. hdl:1912/1408. PMID 16871216. S2CID 4315587. Additional publications include:

A Synopsis of Chesapeake Bay research. With Ian Morris, Sarah E. Libourel Houde, and Wayne Harrell Bell. Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies, University of Maryland System, 1988 Ominous future under the ozone hole: assessing biological impacts in Antarctica. Environmental Defense Fund, Wildlife Program, 1989 Relative abundance and species diversity of autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in aquatic systems. University of California, Santa Cruz 1996 Molecular ecology of aquatic communities. With J. P. Zehr, 1999 Preliminary assessment of microbial communities and biodegradation of chlorinated volatile organic compounds in wetlands at Cluster 13, Lauderick Creek area, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. With Michelle M. Lorah and Tracey A. Spencer. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 2003

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary Voytek

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mary Voytek claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mary Voytek before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mary Voytek ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mary Voytek

In research: Mary Voytek appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mary Voytek in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mary Voytek is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American biologists, 21st-century American women biologists, 21st-century American women civil servants, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary Voytek outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Mary Voytek in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mary Voytek means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mary Voytek out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary Voytek in simple terms?

Dr. Mary A.

Why does Mary Voytek matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mary Voytek?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mary Voytek.