With the support of her supervisors, Professor Johanna Laybourn-Parry and Professor Christine Dodd, Xavier began research involving the bacterioplankton communities in the saline lakes of the Vestfold Hills region of Antarctica. These lakes initially formed 8 to 10,000 years ago when glacial retreat and the subsequent uplifting of the region resulted in the entrapment of ocean water in lakes and ponds, including the three lakes Xavier studies. Over the course of her nine months at Davis in 2006, she split her time between the base, and Ace, Pendant, and Ekho lakes, where she conducted her fieldwork. At each lake, Xavier took water samples at different depths, recording light readings, temperature, pH, and salinity. Each sample had to be cultured in triplicate, using three different media, and all the samples she took were stored cryogenically for transport back to her home institution in the U.K.. Upon preliminary analysis of these samples, Xavier has determined that, although the three lakes under study are of identical origin, the bacterial communities are radically different biologically, leading to further questions about the evolutionary forces at work in these three separate marine ecosystems.
One of three women of 19 total members of the winter team, and as a woman in her late forties, Xavier was not among the norm of researchers at Davis. Her age and gender proved no obstacle to developing a strong professional and personal dynamic on base, and she credits the station leader, John Rich, and the rest of “the lads” with supporting her during what proved to be an exceptionally challenging few months for a woman who never expected to become a microbiologist, never mind spend a winter in Antarctica.
Xavier anticipates that her research may aid climate scientists modeling past, current, and future climate change. She also hopes that further study of these microorganisms may lead to isolation of new antifreeze proteins or low temperature enzymes that may prove useful in industrial applications. Xavier is unsure what her career options will be once she graduates this year. “I doubt if it would involve lab-based research or molecular work, but that might be because I am up to my eyes with it at present,” says Xavier. “I shall have to wait and see what job opportunities there are out there for a woman of my years!”
Xavier has found that her status as a “nontraditional” student has inspired “astonishment and envy” in those who hear her story, but also a measure of skepticism. Xavier says: “Some think I must be insane or at least slightly mad to have undertaken such an adventure. I sometimes think I must have been a little crazy to have done so, too! But nowadays I do tend to live by the adage ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.'”
