Craig Carlson earned his BA in biology from Colby College and completed his PhD in marine microbial ecology at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory, where he studied the role of marine microbes in regulating the carbon cycle of open ocean ecosystems. As a postdoctoral scholar at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, he focused on the biogeochemistry of dissolved organic matter in ocean systems.
Carlson joined the BIOS faculty in 1996, serving as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on several projects, including the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and an NSF Microbial Observatory program. From 2001- 2025, he was a faculty member of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology (EEMB) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he has served as department chair of EEMB and vice chair of the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science (IGPMS) and chaired the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Scientific Steering Committee.
Carlson's work lies at the intersection of marine microbiology and organic biogeochemistry, with a focus on quantifying the links between microbial community dynamics and the cycling of dissolved organic matter in coastal and open ocean systems. He has maintained active research programs at BIOS even after joining the UCSB faculty in 2001. In 2015, he became Science Director of Simons Foundation International's BIOS-SCOPE program, an international microbial oceanography program.
He has chaired the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Scientific Steering Committee, serves on the U.S. GO-SHIP Executive Committee, and is a founding Co-Editor of the Annual Reviews in Marine Science. His contributions to ocean science have been recognized with numerous honors, including the AGU Ocean Sciences Early Career Award (2002), the ASLO G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award (2015), being elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2018), and recognition as an ASLO Sustaining Fellow (2024).
Carlson became Director of ASU BIOS and President and CEO of the Corporation in August 2025.
Specialization:
Microbes play an essential role in governing the large geochemical cycles on our planet like the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles. Marine microbes comprise greater than 95% of all the living biomass in the sea. As Microbial Oceanographers my groups’ research interests are shaped by an interdisciplinary blend of marine microbial ecology, microbiology and ocean biogeochemistry. Specifically our research has focused on the role that marine microbes play in the cycling of elements through oceanic dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the biogeochemical significance of DOM in the marine carbon cycle. We employ a variety of oceanographic, microbiological and molecular approaches to quantify and characterize both DOM composition as well as the microbial lineages that grow on these substrates. The ultimate goal of our research is to gain a better understanding of the role of DOM in ocean biogeochemistry and how microbial community structure responds to and controls DOM quantity and quality in the World’s oceans.