Gustaaf Hallegraeff

Associate Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff has spent 30 years studying microorganisms in the sea. He heads the Harmful Algal Blooms Research Group at UTAS.

Gustaaf's research interests 'range from limnological and oceanographic field surveys of phytoplankton populations, taxonomy by light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, to biochemistry of microalgal pigments, lipids and toxins, micropaleontological studies of cysts in sediment cores and molecular genetics of cultured algal strains.'

Gustaaf writes...

Life on our planet originated in the primaeval fluid of the plankton world of the deep blue sea. The fabric that microscopic diatom shells are made of is both simple and strange in its kaleidoscopic diversity and combination of a few basic elements. Looking at these mystically beautiful designs begs the question: Does the shape of many human-made devices perhaps hark back to some deep, ancestral patterning implanted a billion years ago?

Read more about Gustaaf on the UTAS website.

Gustaaf's micrographs of plankton have stimulated the work of several artists, ceramicists and crafts people.