Charles and Sarah P. Becker ’27 Professor of Botany and Environmental Studies

Peter is the Director of the Program in Environmental Studies and Becker Professor of Botany at the College. He is a limnologist and phycologist, with expertise in paleolimnology, microscopy and statistics. Peter is especially known for his work with microscopic algae, especially the synurophytes, chrysophytes and diatoms, and his research spans numerous questions on the ecology, biogeography, phylogeny and evolutionary histories of these groups of organisms. In addition, he uses the remains of siliceous organisms to infer past conditions in lakes spanning time scales of hundreds to millions of years. He is an expert light and electron microscopist, and along with colleague Jan Hinsch has described a unique method of using incident light to vastly improve resolution with a light microscope. Peter has published over 3,500 micrographs and his images have graced the covers of Bioscience, Palaios, Journal of Phycology, American Journal of Botany, Molecular Ecology and Freshwater Biology. Several of his many videos on microbes have appeared on the television show Forensic Files, and on the movie Largest produced by NASA. He has nearly 160 publications with 65 student coauthors, has described 107 new algal genera and species, and has had another six named in his honor. Peter has taught phycology, limnology and environmental science to thousands of students, and earned numerous awards for teaching, research and service.

Senior Research Scholar

Anne started working in the lab the summer after she graduated from Connecticut College as an Environmental Studies major in 1991, and then also received her Master’s degree in Botany in 1997. She has been working as a laboratory manager for the majority of her time in the Siver lab and her research focuses on the modern scaled chrysophytes along the Eastern coastline of the United States and Canada, as well as more recent work on fossil specimens from an Eocene lake from the Canadian Arctic.

Anne has co-authored numerous papers on scaled chrysophyte floras, has served as co-editor for the Proceedings Volume for the 2008 International Chrysophyte Symposium, supervised the summer research programs, and is responsible for continuing research on Dr. Siver’s NSF grants.