This is the latest in a series of profiles of our MIT Energy Fellows—graduate students who are supported by MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) members to participate in faculty-led research and become part of a long-term community of students and alumni.
Diana M. Chien is exploring the potentially enormous roles that very tiny microbes can play in fighting pollution, sequestering carbon and generating commercial biofuels.
Currently working with Martin F. Polz, professor of civil and environmental engineering, Chien investigates the bacterial genus Vibrio, which includes strains of environmentally beneficial marine microorganisms and other less friendly types. The work, which seeks to pinpoint environmental and evolutionary factors that determine characteristics of different strains, grew out of Chien’s interest in the field after she worked on an earlier project that looked at how tiny ocean phytoplankton respond to and possibly ameliorate global climate change.
To Chien, “microbes determine much of the world as we know it, biochemically and biologically, so it’s important to understand their interactions and how their effects can feed back into the environment.”
A PhD student in microbiology, Chien is a 2010-11 MIT Energy Fellow supported by MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) founding member Shell. The Society of Energy Fellows at MIT welcomed 52 new members in September 2010 to a network of 139 graduate students spanning 20 MIT departments and divisions and all five schools.
Microbes have many potential energy- and environment-related applications. Microbes can help convert plant biomass–an abundant, renewable source of energy-rich carbohydrates–into new biofuels. In a microbial fuel cell, microbial metabolism is used to convert chemical energy to electrical. Through the microbes’ respiratory processes, one or more microbes consume organic feedstock such as plant cellulose. This breaks the feedstock down into carbon dioxide, protons, and electrons. The electrons released are used to generate electricity.
Microbial fuel cells may one day convert everyday waste into electricity and hydrogen fuel. Chien would like to use the latest techniques in high through-put molecular technology and computational analysis of large-scale data sets to identify and manipulate microbes that could help produce commercially viable biofuels. She also hopes to broaden our understanding of how microbes interact with one another and with the environment.
Chien has been passionate about nature and the environment for as long as she can remember. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Chien attended nature programs, read “stacks and stacks” of children-oriented nature magazines, gardened and worked on a farm. Also drawn to writing, Chien majored at Princeton in ecology and evolutionary biology and minored in creative writing, winning numerous national writing awards in the process. She now manages to combine her passions by penning poems about scientific theory. “The part of my brain that gets fascinated by ideas or observations is definitely the same part that gets excited by science,” she said. “I love seeing how complex systems or behaviors can be captured by a few simple rules.”
When looking at PhD programs, Chien was impressed that MIT’s microbiology program encourages exploration and collaboration by allowing students to choose among faculty in multiple departments. “In our first year, we do rotations with different faculty before choosing which lab we want to be in, so we can gain experience with different techniques and concepts,” she said. “MIT became my top choice when I saw the obvious dedication of all the people within the microbiology program to making it a tight-knit and supportive group.”
Besides applying her skills in biology to energy-related research in academia or industry, Chien wants to encourage people to change their behavior in ways that would benefit the environment, such as composting biodegradable waste, paying attention to recycling programs, and using reusable products and low-energy appliances. “You can have great technology and resources, but you still have to convince people that it’s important for them to take a little bit more effort or money and use them,” she said.