Barry and Evelyn Sherr

Barry and Evelyn
Sherr
Oregon State University

Barry and Evelyn Sherr are a husband/wife research team interested in the roles of heterotrophic microbes, including bacteria and phagotrophic protists, in the structure, functioning, and biochemical pathways of planktonic food webs.

Barry received his PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia in 1977 and was a postdoctoral scholar in the UGA Department of Microbiology from 1978 to 1979, with a research focus on denitrification in salt marsh estuaries. Ev received her PhD in zoology from Duke University in 1974 with an oceanographic study of nutrient and phytoplankton distributions over the Southeastern Atlantic continental shelf off Georgia. From 1974 to 1979, Ev worked at the University of Georgia Marine Institute on carbon and nitrogen flows in salt marsh estuaries.

Barry and Ev collaborated on postdoctoral research at the Kinneret Limnological Laboratory in Israel from 1979 to 1981, and worked together as Research Associates at the University of Georgia Marine Institute from 1981 to 1990, focusing on bacterivorous and herbivorous protists in marine systems. They came to the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University in 1990, where they share one position and are currently full professors who teach graduate courses in marine microbiology and biological oceanography. They have participated in several multi-disciplinary research programs in the Arctic Ocean since 1994, including the Arctic Ocean Section (1994), Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (1997-1998), Shelf-Basin Interactions (2002-2004), and Study of North Alaskan Coastal Systems (2005-2006).