Kacie Kajihara, a graduate student in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), was selected as the 2025 Denise B. Evans Fellow. The $37,000 fellowship award will support Kajihara’s quest to better understand one of the most abundant marine microbes.
Kajihara is pursuing a doctoral degree with the Marine Biology Graduate Program in Mike Rappé’s Aquatic Microbial Ecology Lab at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB).
“It means the world to me to be able to pursue research that is directly relevant to my home, at home.” — Kajihara
“I am incredibly grateful and honored!” Kajihara said. “I must extend a huge mahalo to Rappé Lab members past and present, without whom this proposed work would not be possible. As someone born and raised on Oʻahu, it means the world to me to be able to pursue research that is directly relevant to my home, at home. I think that the more we understand about microbes and their roles in the environment, the better equipped we can be to protect beloved ecosystems here and elsewhere.”
Pursuit to understand ocean ecology
Kajihara’s graduate research project focuses on SAR86, a group of heterotrophic bacteria (carbon consuming ocean microbes) that is among the most abundant microbes on the ocean surface and plays a critical role in carbon and nutrient cycling. SAR86 can harvest energy from sunlight and can also obtain energy from eating organic carbon.
“Despite its ubiquity, we know relatively little about the physiology and cellular biology [of SAR86] because it has been difficult to isolate and grow in the lab,” explained Kajihara. “My goal is to couple fluorescence in situ hybridization [fluorescent gene-targeting technique] with a high throughput cultivation experiment to facilitate the process of isolating this bacteria. Once isolated, I will run additional experiments to establish physiological baseline data for the first time and test functions that we hypothesize from SAR86 genomes. These data will hopefully allow us to build on the collective understanding of global ocean ecology by including the activities of this major microbial group.”
Kajihara will dedicate time to student mentoring and also hopes to develop educational materials to introduce high school and early college students to marine microbe research.
More about the Denise B. Evans Fellowship
Outstanding SOEST graduate students are chosen for this fellowship based on publications, presentations, research endeavors and potential impact in their future careers. A generous gift in 2013 from the estate of Denise B. Evans established the fellowship.
