About François Ribalet
I am a biological oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle. My research group studies phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that fuel ocean food webs and regulate Earth’s carbon cycling. We use SeaFlow, our custom-built flow cytometer, to track these cells in real time during research cruises, collecting high-resolution data across the global ocean. By combining these measurements with statistical models, we study how environmental change influence phytoplankton growth and community dynamics, and how these tiny organisms help regulate the health of marine ecosystems and the planet’s climate.