Susanne Neuer’s long connection with Bermuda comes "Full Circle"

Leading Arizona State University’s School of Ocean Futures, Susanne Neuer’s deep connection with Bermuda has come "full circle"

When Susanne Neuer stepped aboard the research vessel (R/V) Weatherbird II in 1994, she was at the very start of her career and embarking on her first cruise with what was then the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. Despite choppy seas and a bout of seasickness, the experience proved pivotal. It sparked collaborations and a scientific partnership that would span decades and ultimately shape her enduring relationship with Bermuda. 

Then a postdoctoral scholar at Germany’s University of Bremen, Neuer couldn’t have predicted that a distinguished career, beginning in her native Germany and taking her to the Arizona desert, would eventually return her to the Sargasso Sea and rekindle a professional alliance with another  student from that 1994 cruise. 

Among them was Craig Carlson, now president and CEO of Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and a professor of microbial oceanography with the school. 
 

“Susanne and I share a common interest in microbial oceanography, biogeochemistry and the power of ocean time-series research, and we have interacted and shared ideas over the past several decades,” Carlson said.

“It is especially gratifying to now be reunited in our respective roles at ASU, continuing to advance the time-series science that has shaped both of our careers.”

After 20 years of teaching oceanography, marine science and related subjects at the ASU School of Life Sciences, Neuer was appointed in 2022 to lead the new School of Ocean Futures. 

Drawing on her extensive experience as a biological oceanographer and plankton ecologist, she also took on responsibility for a new faculty, the first six members of whom she already knew through her longstanding affiliation with ASU BIOS. 

“Full circle,” Neuer said of her journey. Fittingly, she received ASU’s letter offering her the position while conducting a study aboard a Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) cruise. 

“That was pretty cool,” she said. “It wasn’t planned that way, but the letter was ready to be signed right when I was at sea. From the beginning, we took our raison d’etre – the reason for being – from our partnership with BIOS. That felt really perfect.”

“The new school gave these scientists an academic home with financial security, access to PhD students and research resources.” 

By fall 2024, the school had grown to offer undergraduate, graduate and PhD programs, and its faculty had expanded to 18 tenure-track members.  

While building the school and mentoring a growing faculty, Neuer’s career had long been shaped by her research across the Atlantic. After her initial visit to Bermuda in 1994, she returned to Germany as a research associate in ocean biogeochemistry at the University of Bremen, often traveling to another ocean time-series research station. Similar to BATS, the European Station for Time-Series in the Ocean of the Canary Islands, located 60 nautical miles from Gran Canaria, became a key site where Neuer pursued her interest in the role of particles in the carbon cycle. 

Over the years, she continued to study the biological carbon pump, a process in which carbon sinks to the deep ocean, helping slow the rise of atmospheric carbon, returning regularly to Bermuda to conduct experiments using BATS and ASU BIOS facilities in collaboration with colleagues.  

Neuer’s collaborations at ASU BIOS have deepened over the years. 

“I first met Susanne at BIOS in 2015,” said Leocadio Blanco-Bercial, assistant professor with the School of Ocean Futures and an associate scientist at ASU BIOS. “She was leading a National Science Foundation-funded project at BATS, and our conversations led to a new joint NSF-financed project and the beginning of a great collaboration. We even co-advised ASU students before the institutional merge.”

Her project, “Zooplankton mediation of particle formation in the Sargasso Sea”, brought Neuer to ASU BIOS for three research cruises per year from 2021 to 2023. This overlapped with her new role leading the school, giving her the chance to work closely with the facility.

Now, Neuer said she visits ASU BIOS at least once a year for events such as the station's 120th anniversary and to meet with the faculty and students. The station, its people and its history are very close to her heart. Neuer has known ASU BIOS for decades, along with generations of scientists who passed through the station. While the merger with ASU was personally meaningful, she emphasizes its broader impact: it allowed the creation of the School of Ocean Futures, giving students the chance to study the ocean without leaving Arizona and providing hundreds of undergraduate, graduate students and PhD candidates with unique research opportunities in the Atlantic.

Ever the hands-on scientist, Neuer plans to return to ASU BIOS soon to collect data for a study she is conducting with Woods Hole Marine Biological Lab oceanographer and biogeochemist Rut Pedrosa Pamies. This study compares the microbiomes of sinking particles collected by the Oceanic Flux Program’s deep ocean sediment traps with particles collected by the shallower BATS trap array. Results will provide the “insight needed to improve predictions of how the ocean’s biological carbon pump responds to environmental change.”

“As an oceanographer and biogeochemist, I want to continue working with the faculty at ASU BIOS and build on that long-term data set,” she said. She describes ASU BIOS as her scientific home base, a place that will continue to grow, inspire new talent and support long-term research and international collaboration. Through the partnership between ASU, the School of Ocean Futures and ASU BIOS, the station will remain a hub where oceanographers can come to work, contribute to science and carry forward the legacy of decades of research.