MIT EAPS Directory

Greg Fournier is an expert in molecular phylogenetics and microbial evolution. His research investigates the geobiological context for the complex evolutionary histories of genes involved in “horizontal gene transfer” or HGT, the early evolution of microbial systems and metabolisms, and how these processes have shaped the biogeochemistry and habitability of the planet.

His research accomplishments span many eras of Earth’s history, including the identification of the HGT origin of new methane-producing metabolisms at a time closely linked with the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, discovering gene histories showing oxygen-dependent sterol biosynthesis evolved in the ancestors of eukaryotes over 2 billion years ago, and developing new HGT-based approaches for dating the origin of microbial groups and metabolisms, including methanogenesis and oxygenic photosynthesis. His current work focuses on expanding HGT-based molecular clocks to obtain a comprehensive, precise dating of the microbial Tree of Life, as well as focused studies on the evolution of major groups of cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and microbes involved in the nitrogen cycle and the consumption of animal-derived organic materials.

Fournier received an A.B. degree in Genetics from Dartmouth (2001) and a Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics from the University of Connecticut (2009). Since then he has worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Connecticut and as a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in MIT’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. He joined the faculty at MIT in 2014.