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Gregory Dick

Dr. Gregory Dick
Director of the Cooperative Institute of Great Lakes Research (CIGLR); Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
Ecosystem Science and Management
Water
[email protected]
CV

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About

Dr. Gregory Dick is the Director of the Cooperative Institute of Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) and an Alfred F. Thurnau Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.  He also holds affiliations in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, and the Chemical Biology Graduate Program.  Professor Dick's research focuses on the role of microorganisms in shaping environmental processes, water quality, and biogeochemistry. His lab specializes in the use of 'omics (genomics, transcriptomics, etc.) to study microbial communities in a wide variety of environments including the deep sea, the Great Lakes, the human gut, and engineered systems. His current research focuses on the microbial ecology of harmful cyanobacterial blooms that threaten freshwater ecosystems around the world, using Lake Erie as a natural laboratory.

Publications

Hellweger FL, RM Martin, F Eigemann, DJ Smith, GJ Dick, SW Wilhelm (2022). Models predict planned phosphorus load reduction will make Lake Erie more toxic. Science 376: 1001-1005.

Yancey CE, DJ Smith, PA Den Uyl, OG Mohamed, F Yu, SA Ruberg, JD Chaffin, K Goodwin, A Tripathi, DH Sherman, and GJ Dick (2022). Metagenomic and Metatranscriptomic Insights into Population Diversity of Microcystis Blooms: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of mcy Genotypes, Including a Partial Operon That Can Be Abundant and Expressed. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 88: e02464-21.

Smith DJ, MA Berry, RM Cory, TH Johengen, GW Kling, TW Davis, and GJ Dick (2022). Heterotrophic Bacteria Dominate Catalase Expression during Microcystis Blooms. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 88: e02544-21.

Klatt JM, A Chennu, BK Arbic, BA Biddanda, D de Beer and GJ Dick (2021). Possible link between Earth’s rotation rate and oxygenation. Nature Geoscience 14: 564-570.

Dick GJ (2019). The microbiomes of deep-sea hydrothermal vents: distributed globally, shaped locally. Nature Reviews Microbiology 17: 271-283.

Google Scholar page
Research

2022-2025: (PI) HAB-OA 2022: Synergistic impact of climate induced acidification, temperature, total alkalinity and nutrients on cyanobacteria HABs in the Great Lakes. NOAA. $1.2M (With Reagan Errera et al.)

2022-2027 (PI) Cooperative Institute of Great Lakes Research. NOAA. $53M

2020-2025 (Co-PI) Host and Microbial Metabolism in Graft versus Host Disease. NIH. $11.7M (With Pavan Reddy et al.)

2018-2024 (PI) Discovery and characterization of new toxins in genomes and metagenomes of bloom-forming cyanobacteria; Great Lakes Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health. NSF/NIEHS $480k (With David Sherman). 

2020-2024 (PI) Determining how the ecophysiology of different Microcystis strains underpins succession and toxicity of harmful cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Erie. Michigan Sea Grant, NOAA. $200k

Accolades

2023 Arthur F. Thurnau Professor 

2020 John Dewey Award for teaching, College of Literature, Arts, and Sciences, University of Michigan

2020 GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Post-Tenure Award

2019 Geoclub Best Professor (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences)

2015 Individual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education, College of Literature, Science, and Arts, University of Michigan

2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Ocean Science

Education

PhD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (marine biology)

BA, University of Virginia (biology)

Affiliations

2021-present Member, NOAA Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Team

2014-present Editorial Board, Environmental Microbiology

2014-2022 Subject Editor (Molecular Geomicrobiology), Geobiology.  

Professional society memberships: American Geophysical Union; International Society for Microbial Ecology; American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Limnology and Oceanography

In the News
Bacterial villain behind Lake Erie’s ‘potent toxin’ unveiled by U-M study
May 7, 2025

Bacterial villain behind Lake Erie’s ‘potent toxin’ unveiled by U-M study

In the warm summertime waters of Lake Erie, cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, can proliferate out of control, creating algal blooms that produce toxins at a rate that...

The state of the Great Lakes: SEAS experts available to comment
January 28, 2025

The state of the Great Lakes: SEAS experts available to comment

Ahead of a Feb. 4 congressional briefing on Great Lakes science, University of Michigan experts are available to speak on trends in policy, weather, water quality and...

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires created  hazy skies near the Mackinac Bridge in June 2023.
November 7, 2024

"The Great Lakes University"

U-M is a major convener of Great Lakes research thanks to its interdisciplinary efforts to address climate change and other problems. SEAS is a microcosm of that work because of its Great Lakes research centers and institutes; collaborations with other U-M units; and expansive partnerships with organizations within Ann Arbor, the region, and spanning the U.S., Canada and other countries. What this means, according to SEAS Dean Jonathan Overpeck, is that U-M is well-positioned to be “The Great Lakes University.”

U-M lands $6.5M center to study Great Lakes algal blooms
June 6, 2024

U-M lands $6.5M center to study Great Lakes algal blooms

Great Lakes researchers at the University of Michigan have been awarded a $6.5 million, five-year federal grant to host a center for the study of links between climate...

Lake Michigan from sleeping bear sand dunes
August 9, 2023

New guiding principles urgently needed for Great Lakes stewardship, U-M researchers say

ANN ARBOR—The tools and policies that worked to significantly reduce threats to the Great Lakes over the past century are ill-equipped to handle today's complex and...

The future of Great Lakes stewardship
July 18, 2023

The future of Great Lakes stewardship

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is drafting an updated Great Lakes restoration plan, which presents an opportunity to create a new set of Great Lakes management...

In the Media
05/21/2025
Mike Shriberg
Gregory Dick
2026 budget cuts to NOAA could halt federal funding to Great Lakes research (The Michigan Daily)
05/06/2025
Gregory Dick
Millions of People Depend on the Great Lakes’ Water Supply. Trump Decimated the Lab Protecting It. (ProPublica)
05/04/2025
Gregory Dick
Green algae in Lake Erie may be hiding toxic, deadly compounds (Earth.com)
04/27/2025
Casey Godwin
Gregory Dick
Great Lakes research at risk as Trump administration proposes major cuts to NOAA (Michigan Public)
02/13/2025
Gregory Dick
Lake Victoria is turning green – the deadly bacteria behind it (The Conversation)
10/08/2024
Gregory Dick
A Crew Was Searching for Shipwrecks in Lake Michigan—but They Found Something Completely Different (Popular Mechanics)
08/27/2024
Gregory Dick
Scientists just discovered cold, dark sinkholes in Lake Michigan. What's living in them? (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
06/03/2024
Gregory Dick
U-M lands $6.5M center to study Great Lakes algal blooms (The University Record)
08/21/2023
Gregory Dick
Scientists are learning just how complicated it will be to reduce toxic blooms in Lake Erie (Michigan Radio)
07/02/2023
Barry Rabe
Gregory Dick
A Climate Laggard in America’s Industrial Heartland Has a Plan to Change, Fast (The New York Times)
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