Informal Bio
I have always been interested in microbiology, bacteriology really. I come by it honestly as my Dad was a microbiologist, retired from the University of Minnesota, who passed away last year. His obituary is at the ASM website. I started out ratting around in his lab trying to isolate and characterize methane-oxidizing bacteria. I went to UW-Madison and got my B.S. in Bacteriology and did research both with my Dad and with Prof. Jorge Escalante-Semerena working on vitamin B12 biosynthesis. I did my Ph.D. in Microbiology at UC-Davis with Prof. Jack Meeks where I got introduced to cyanobacteria and bacterial genetics. I landed a postdoc at The Ohio State University with Prof. Bob Tabita (also deceased, see his memorial) where I stayed green, but went anoxic, by working with Chlorobium tepidum (as it was called then) starting out on carbon fixation and ending up on sulfur metabolism. I started at UD in the College of Marine and Earth Studies in January 2003, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009, and Professor in 2014. My lab space has always been in the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, an interdisciplinary research institute where I served as Interim Associate Director from 2017-2022.
e-mail: tehanson@udel.edu
Phone: (302) 831-3404
CV, publications, and other places to find out more about me
My most recent CV
NCBI Bibliography
Google Scholar
ORCID profile
CEOE Faculty Page
DBI Faculty Profile
More Formal Bio
Prof. Hanson received his B.S. in Bacteriology from UW-Madison in 1992 followed by his Ph.D. in Microbiology from UC-Davis in 1998 and a postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University from 1998-2002. He has been a faculty member at UD since 2003 in the School of Marine Science and Policy working in the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. At UD, he has helped launch degree programs in Marine Science (B.S.), Bioinformatics Data Science (Ph.D. and M.S.), and Microbiology (Ph.D. and M.S.). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the USDA, and the Keck Foundation. He has received an NSF CAREER award, a German Academic Exchange Service fellowship, and was a Visiting Scientist at the DOE's Joint Genome Institute for 2023. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and American Association for the Advancement of Science. His Ph.D. work was on nitrogen regulation in filamentous Cyanobacteria. His current research is on metabolism and ecology in diverse microbes, but is really microbial journalism: What microbes (who) carry out processes (what) in diverse environments (where)? What genes and enzymes are involved (how) and what is the benefit for the organism (why)?
