Regan W. McDearis

Dr. Regan McDearis is a postdoctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she leverages her expertise in soil microbial ecology to investigate the complex environmental factors driving microbial community composition and function. As part of the SPRUCE (Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments; https://mnspruce.ornl.gov/) project, Dr. McDearis is working to disentangle the effects of warming and drying on peat decomposition dynamics, providing crucial insights into the resilience and responses of these ecologically significant ecosystems under climate perturbations. Using lab-scale incubations, she combines high-throughput sequencing with bioinformatic analyses to decode microbial interactions in simplified systems and integrate these findings into broader field-scale observations.

Dr. McDearis also brings specialized expertise in soil viral ecology, cultivated during her postdoc at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and while completing her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee. Her research in this emerging field has advanced understanding of virus–microbe interactions in terrestrial ecosystems and their implications for biogeochemical cycles.