<div dir="ltr"><div><div style="text-align:center"><span id="m_-2109296035645182926gmail-docs-internal-guid-b4693e53-7fff-e9fc-1722-38c085a97cb7"><span style="font-size:21pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000">Maggie Sogin</font></span></span></div><div style="text-align:center"><span id="m_-2109296035645182926gmail-docs-internal-guid-3d8d20b9-7fff-790c-0448-115adfcc0621"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><span style="font-size:11pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">University of California, Merced</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><span style="text-align:start">Candidate for </span><span style="text-align:start"> </span><span style="text-align:start">Assistant Professor in Computational and/or Analytical Metabolomics </span>  </font></p><img src="cid:ii_mljpizdk0" alt="image.png" width="190" height="287" style="margin-right: 0px;"></span><span><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font face="georgia, serif" style="" size="4" color="#073763"><b style="">Metabolite interface of the seagrass-microbiome</b></font></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000" size="4"><b>Date:</b> Thursday , February 19, 2026</font></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000" size="4"><b>Time: </b>2:00 -3:00 pm</font></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000" size="4"><b>Location: </b>Genomics Auditorium </font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"></p><div><b><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000" size="4">Abstract:</font></b></div><div style="text-align:left"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-f6657af1-7fff-6c51-45a3-491268ce81f6"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font face="georgia, serif" size="4"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Microorganisms play an essential role in shaping the ecology and evolution of nearly every form of life on Earth. These microorganisms play diverse roles within their hosts that contribute to organismal health and metabolism. In some cases, host-microbe interactions can also influence global biogeochemical cycles. In my seminar, I will highlight our work focused on leveraging computational and analytical metabolomic techniques to explore the role of marine microbes in shaping the chemical ecology of seagrasses and their microbiomes. Seagrasses are a fully submerged marine flowering plant that evolved from terrestrial angiosperms on at least three separate occasions. They are considered a “blue” carbon ecosystem because they store a significant amount of CO</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="vertical-align:sub">2</span></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="vertical-align:super"> </span></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">in their tissues and soils. In my seminar, I will first provide insights from our ‘omic observations that allowed us to show that sucrose is piling up to mM concentrations underneath seagrass meadows. Specifically, we used a combination of metagenomic, metatranscriptomic and metabolomic analyses, and in situ incubation experiments, to show that sucrose persists in </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Posidonia oceanica </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">rhizospheres because aromatic-rich dissolved organic matter (DOM) produced by the seagrass inhibits microbial metabolism under low oxygen conditions. I will then outline current research in my lab centered on describing how these chemical interactions are likely to shift under future levels of stress. Finally, I will end my seminar by providing an overview of my future research and educational goals. </span></font></p><br></span></div></span></div><div style="text-align:center"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"></div></div></div>