Julia Schwartman received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison studying how marine bacteria persist as animal symbionts. She subsequently trained as a Ruth Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School where she investigated the evolutionary diversification of animal-associated bacteria, and as a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT where her work focused on the ecological consequences of phenotypic heterogeneity in marine bacteria. At USC, Schwartman's lab will investigate how complex bacterial behaviors shape coastal marine ecosystems through their contribution to nutrient cycling and the development of brown algae.