Professor Stephen (Steve) Pointing earned his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of Portsmouth. He won a prestigious Sainsbury Scholarship for postgraduate environmental research at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Marine Microbiology in 1995. Prof Pointing gained a Master of Business Administration, specialising in higher education management from the University of Leicester in 2010. He has spent his entire academic career in the Asia-Pacific region, where he has held academic positions in Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. Prof Pointing has committed significant effort to training and mentoring emerging scientists in the region including many postgraduate students from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines. He has held several academic leadership positions and is an award-winning teacher and media commentator on scientific issues.

Prof Pointing has dedicated his scientific career to advancing the understanding of microbial life in extreme environments. Notable discoveries have included deciphering the global distribution of atmospheric microbes, how desert bacteria avoid environmental stress, the biogeography of hot spring bacteria, and physiology of wood-degrading marine fungi. Applied research has led to important advances in heritage conservation, pollutant degradation and the development of approaches to search for traces of life on Mars. Prof Pointing is particularly proud of the achievements by many PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who have been part of the group over the years. They have been central to this journey of discovery and made everything worthwhile.

• Environmental Microbiology
• Extremophiles
• Planetary Health

Publications

A full list of my journal and book publications is available on Google Scholar Citations:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_dZ17VEAAAAJ&hl=en.

Some key publications:

1. Archer SDJ, Lee KC, Maki T, Lee CK, Cary SC, Cowan DA, Maestre FT, Pointing SB (2019) Airborne microbial transport limitation to isolated Antarctic soil habitats. Nature Microbiology 4, 925-932.
2. Chan Y, van Nostrand J, Zhou J, Pointing SB, Farrell RL (2013) Functional ecology of an Antarctic dry valley. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 110, 8990-8995.
3. Pointing SB and Belnap J (2012) Microbial colonization and controls in dryland systems. Nature Reviews Microbiology 10, 551-562.
4. Bahl J, Lau MCY, Smith GJD, Dhanasekeran V, Cary SC, Lacap DC, Lee CK, Papke RT, Warren-Rhodes KA, Wong FKY, McKay CP, Pointing SB (2011) Ancient origins determine global biogeography of hot and cold desert cyanobacteria. Nature Communications 2, 163.
5. Pointing SB, Chan Y, Lacap DC, Lau MCY, Jurgens J, Farrell RL (2009) Highly specialized microbial diversity in hyper-arid polar desert. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106, 19964-19969.

• YSC2236 Microbiomes