Benjamin Van Mooy, Oceanographer, 2024 MacArthur Fellow
Newswise — Woods Hole, Mass. (Oct. 1, 2024) – Benjamin Van Mooy, a Senior Scientist and Interim Vice President for Science and Engineering at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, informally known as a “genius grant.”
The honor was announced today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which each year names its list of MacArthur Fellows to talented individuals including scientists, writers, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, and entrepreneurs. The goal of the fellowship is to provide recipients the greatest possible flexibility to pursue their artistic, intellectual, and professional vision in the absence of specific obligations or reporting requirements.
The criteria for selection includes exceptional creativity, the promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. Fellows are nominated anonymously by leaders in their respective fields, and each fellowship comes without restrictions or reporting requirements.
Van Mooy’s research has broad implications on understanding of how the ocean impacts and can help regulate climate. His work focuses on the many ways microbial organisms like plankton contribute to maintaining the health of marine environments and play critical roles in nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon cycling in the ocean. In particular, his research on planktonic lipid dynamics sheds light on how changes to marine ecosystems can impact food webs, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, and other biogeochemical processes.
In early work, Van Mooy found that phytoplankton in the Sargasso Sea—which is relatively low in phosphorus—maintain their growth by replacing phosphorus-containing lipids in cell membranes with sulfur-containing lipids. Phytoplankton are the basis of the ocean food web, so any change to the nutrient content of their cells has broader implications for ocean ecosystems.
According to the MacArthur Fellow team, “Van Mooy is filling critical gaps in our understanding of intricate biogeochemical networks that sustain life on Earth and of how climate change could impact the health and productivity of our oceans.”
“When I first got the call from the MacArthur Foundation, I was absolutely convinced they dialed the wrong number,” said Van Mooy. “Now, that disbelief has been replaced with an extreme gratitude for all the folks that have touched my life, particularly the WHOI technical staff members, postdocs, and graduate students that have made my lab group a place to explore creative ideas about how the ocean works.”
“The MacArthur Fellows Program identifies extraordinarily creative individuals with a track record of excellence,” said WHOI President and Director Peter de Menocal. “Today’s announcement is a wonderful recognition of Ben and his exceptional accomplishments – it is also a celebration of WHOI’s can-do research and engineering ecosystem that fosters creativity, collaboration, and excellence.”
Van Mooy joined WHOI in 2003 as a postdoctoral scholar and has remained at the institution ever since, including serving as Chair of the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department before his recent appointment as Interim Vice President for Science and Engineering. He has published in a variety of scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among others. He received the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in 2022 and is a Simons Foundation SCOPE Investigator as well as a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow.
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About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its mission is to understand the ocean and its interactions with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. WHO Is pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in fundamental and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of ocean data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge to inform people and policies for a healthier planet. Learn more at whoi.edu.
About the MacArthur Fellow Program
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including advancing global climate solutions, decreasing nuclear risk, promoting local justice reform in the U.S., and reducing corruption in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. In addition to the MacArthur Fellows Program and the global 100&Change competition, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsive democracy as well as the vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. www.macfound.org
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