Lucy M. McCully

Lucy M. McCully (@microMcCully on Twitter) is a PhD candidate in Integrative Biology at UMass Dartmouth. She is passionate about microbes, wine tasting, craft beer, and wine. Also wine. Her research focuses on the interaction between P. fluorescens Pf0-1 and Pedobacter sp. V48, two distantly-related soil bacteria that exhibit what we’ve termed “social motility” on a hard agar surface. She is interested in the study of bacterial communities, particularly interspecific interactions that lead to strange and cool behaviors. Microbiomes are her jam. Currently, she’s studying the nutrient conditions required for social motility, the prevalence of this behavior in closely-related bacteria, and other things like “surviving grad school”. She’s also being tortured by her bacteria who can’t seem to make up their minds about how flagella are involved in social motility. Her hobbies include PC gaming, fantasy novels, cross-stitch, and hiking. She is an amateur lab photographer, #SciComm advocate, and hopes to one day have to snowshoe to her sample site under the aurora borealis. #WomenInSTEM.