Diana Northup

You may know her as the scientist co-founder, with Penny Boston, of the Slime Team (Subsurface Life in Mineral Environments) formed to study cave-dwelling microbes but did you know that this extraordinary woman has under her belt, besides several bachelors, masters and doctor degrees, close to 50 years of caving during which she's had a lot of publications published (one book and dozens articles) and been an amazing mentor to some 60 students of all levels at UNM, getting them to win awards and receive several grants at the local, regional and national level? Do not miss her TED talk on using your passion to mentor (link below).

She's also given numerous talks to public groups, has participated in National Parks Week at Carlsbad Caverns National Park for several years, has taken several media persons on fieldwork expeditions to caves, and has been interviewed for several stories about her research, including a NOVA episode, Mysterious Life of Caves and segments on CNN, NHK in Japan, Discovery Channel: Are We Alone? (2009), National Geographic: Death Valley (2009), BBC: Life in the Solar System (2010), National Geographic Expedition, 2013.

Diana has held local, regional and national cave-related administrative duties with the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, Karst Waters Institute, Cave Research Foundation and NSS.

Her favorite caves? Cueva de Villa Luz in Tabasco Mexico and Spider Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. "I really love Villa Luz because everywhere you look there are microbes!" Northup exclaims with a wink. "Even though it's far more dangerous than Lechuguilla Cave because of the high hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide gas levels, I have no sense of the danger. I can only see the scientific wonder." Spider Cave, on the other hand, is a caver's cavesmall and twisty. "I love crawling through all the maze passages and imagining the walls with their cities of microbes, all going about their business."

As for her favorite science caves, these  are numerous and include Golden Dome in Lava Beds National Monument, Maelstrom and Kula Kai portions of the Kipuka Kanohina Cave System, Four Windows Cave, El Malpais National Monument, Terra Mole in the Azores, and several not to be named caves. "Fort Stanton Cave's Snowy River Passage is gaining in my estimation because it has two candidate divisions of the bacteria in abundance. It fascinates me that the well of Snowy River contains multitudes of these mostly unknown bacteria, including a new phylum (same level as the Animal phylum) that we know almost nothing about." 

So, if you want to be introduced to the wonderful world of cave microbes, look no further - Diana Northup is your extraordinary woman caver ever ready to fascinate you!

SOURCE
Submitted by Carole Devillers,  EWLS Social Media Reporter
Image: caveslime.org
Diana's Ted Talk: tedxtalks.ted.com