How a Rutgers Doctoral Student's Curiosity Led to a Discovery About Evolution

Rutgers School of Graduate Studies alumna Julia Van Etten, whose discovery of two new microbial species drew national attention, credits her doctoral mentors, colleagues, and years of scientific curiosity for helping turn an unexpected observation into groundbreaking research.

When Julia Van Etten spotted an unusual green microorganism under her microscope, she was sitting on her couch in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. The water sample had come from a family vacation in North Carolina, and Van Etten, then a doctoral student at Rutgers University, was pursuing what she considered a personal hobby.

What she saw, however, was anything but ordinary.

“I remember sitting on my couch in Scotch Plains, looking at what I thought was a Paulinella cell, which was very unexpected,” Van Etten recalled.

She immediately contacted Arwa Gabr, another doctoral student in the laboratory of Rutgers professor Debashish Bhattacharya, who was conducting research on Paulinella. Gabr agreed that the organism appeared to be the elusive microbe. Van Etten then sent images to Bhattacharya, her doctoral adviser.

“He said, ‘we have to plan a trip back to that site as a lab next year,’” Van Etten recalled. “Having an advisor who had no reservations about planning a future trip for what seemed like a long-shot project at the time, is what I remember most. I was so excited to have the support to turn my little hobbyist discovery into a real research project.”

That unexpected observation ultimately launched a multiyear investigation that led Van Etten and her collaborators to identify two previously unknown species of photosynthetic Paulinella, microorganisms that could help scientists better understand a pivotal event in the evolution of complex life.

Dr. Van Etten at the sampling site in North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Julia Van Etten.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Phycology in September 2026, attracted national attention, including a feature in The New York Times about the team's unconventional fieldwork in a North Carolina motel room.

For Van Etten, who earned her doctoral degree in ecology and evolution from Rutgers' School of Graduate Studies in February 2024, the discovery highlighted something she learned throughout her graduate education; important scientific questions are worth pursuing, even when the outcome is uncertain.

Finding Her Scientific Community at Rutgers

Van Etten's decision to pursue her doctorate at Rutgers was driven by scientific interests, a sense of belonging, and an affection for her home state.

“What drew me to Rutgers for my PhD were three things,” she said. “I was really excited to work with Prof. Debashish Bhattacharya who became my PhD mentor. I had read many of his papers on algal genomics and symbiosis and really wanted to work with him.”

Julia Van Etten Bhattacharya, her doctoral adviser in Yellowstone National Park. Photo courtesy of Julia Van Etten.

Her visit during graduate recruitment also made an impression.

“I had a blast at the recruitment day event for the graduate program and I could tell the Ecology and Evolution students were my people (and they were),” she said. “I'm from New Jersey and I love New Jersey.”

At Rutgers, Van Etten immersed herself in research on microbial evolution while building relationships that would shape her development as a scientist.

“First and foremost, my relationship with my PhD advisor, Debashish Bhattacharya, shaped my development as a scientist,” she said. “I learned from him how to see a research project through from idea to experiment to analysis to publishing, and developing that set of skills has been the most important part of my career development.”

She also credits professors Lena Struwe and Siobain Duffy, who served on her doctoral committee, with guidance that extended beyond her research.

“My conversations with them about research, mentoring, being a woman in academia, and how to navigate other life challenges, had a huge impact on me as a person and scientist,” she said.

Those relationships became especially meaningful when Van Etten's curiosity about an organism she had encountered outside the laboratory opened an entirely new direction for her research.

A Discovery Years in the Making

Paulinella is a rare, single-celled organism of particular interest to evolutionary biologists because it offers clues about how organisms acquire the ability to produce energy through photosynthesis.

All photosynthetic plants and algae trace that ability to an ancient evolutionary event in which one organism incorporated a photosynthetic bacterium. Over time, the bacterium became a specialized structure within the host cell, known as an organelle.

A similar transformation occurred independently in Paulinella approximately 100 million years ago, making it a valuable model for studying a process that otherwise took place more than a billion years in the past.

“The Paulinella lineage went through an analogous transformation where the ancestor (an amoeba) turned a photosynthetic bacterium that it likely ate as food, into an organelle that allowed it to shift its lifestyle from consuming prey to doing photosynthesis,” Van Etten explained.

Because that transformation occurred relatively recently in evolutionary terms, scientists can examine biological relationships that are more difficult to reconstruct in organisms whose photosynthetic machinery evolved much earlier.

“This means that Paulinella is a model system and by studying it, we can study this process more generally,” she said.

But Paulinella is difficult to find and study. Its scarcity and slow growth make it challenging to observe, particularly under laboratory conditions.

Following her initial discovery, Van Etten returned to North Carolina repeatedly over several years to collect water samples and investigate the organism in its natural environment.

“I was motivated to continue this work because each time we visited the North Carolina field site we found more Paulinella cells and learned more about how this organism looks, moves, and behaves in nature,” she said. “This is a low-abundance organism that not many people study and it's so important to evolutionary biology, so it felt like a privilege to get to spend so much time watching it in its natural state.”

In spring 2025, Van Etten and her collaborators turned an $80 motel room in Nags Head, North Carolina, into an improvised research laboratory. Surrounded by water samples and microscopes, they examined the microorganisms they had collected.

Julia Van Etten and colleagues conducting research in a makeshift laboratory in Nags Head, North Carolina. Photo by Susanne Ruemmele.

The unusual setting later became a centerpiece of the New York Times story. Behind that memorable scene, however, was years of careful observation.

Van Etten and her colleagues had noticed subtle differences among the Paulinella cells. Some were larger and smoother and tended to attach to plants or other cells, while others were smaller, rougher, and more likely to float freely.

Those observations led them to investigate whether the cells represented distinct species.

Using electron microscopy and genetic sequencing, the researchers examined differences in cell structures and DNA, ultimately confirming that the two populations were sufficiently distinct to be classified as new species.

“Our team was really led by growing curiosity and affinity for Paulinella and learning that the two different types of cells we were observing were actually two different species was just a bonus finding,” Van Etten said.

For her, the discovery also demonstrated the value of approaching scientific questions patiently and systematically.

“This project is a really clear example of why the scientific method and patience are both really important,” she said. “We observed cells in nature over years and got really in-tune with their subtle movements and how they looked.”

The confirmation was a culmination of years of effort.

“Very exciting and rewarding when years of hard work and slow, step-wise progress pays off!” she said.

Building on Her Rutgers Foundation

After completing her doctoral degree, Van Etten received a National Science Foundation award to conduct postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Matthew Johnson at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Dr. Van Etten viewing the Paulinella cell, imaged on an electron microscope at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. Photo courtesy of Julia Van Etten.

There, she investigated how DNA moves between microbial species in river and estuary environments, expanding her research on the evolutionary relationships among microorganisms.

In 2026, she joined the University of Maryland, College Park, as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, where she is establishing an independent research laboratory.

“We are growing the Paulinella project and my other projects that focus on DNA transfer using many of the skills I developed during my time at Rutgers,” she said.

Van Etten sees her Rutgers experience as foundational because of her scientific training and the broader research community she encountered.

“I am so thankful for my time at Rutgers and especially in the Bhattacharya lab!” she said. “I think that doing a PhD at a large, public university is the best way to interact with a diversity of researchers within and outside of your chosen field, to make connections, and to utilize lots of different resources.”

She continues to draw on those experiences as she takes on the responsibilities of leading her own laboratory, developing new research projects, and mentoring the next generation of scientists.

“Having these connections (friends and colleagues), the knowledge of what types of instruments, facilities, and expertise is out there, and being part of a large community supportive of research has been the most important part of preparing me for the phase of my career I'm in now,” she said.

Following Curiosity, Building Connections

For current graduate students, Van Etten's advice is rooted in the relationships and experiences that helped shape her own career.

“I would say to work hard on your relationships with mentors and fellow graduate students,” she said. “These people may be your friends and collaborators for life.”

She also encourages students to pursue their research questions with both discipline and flexibility.

“I also think it's really important to see projects through to the end and publish them, and to follow your curiosity even if it means deviating a bit from where you envisioned your project going at its inception,” she said.

And while dedication to research matters, Van Etten believes graduate education should also leave room for personal well-being and enjoyment.

“It's also really good to take some time off for your mental health, spend time in nature, and it's important to have fun during grad school, including while doing work.”

It is advice that resonates with her own path. A rainy family vacation, a microscope on a couch, and an unexpected organism became the starting point for years of research and a scientific discovery that made national headlines. What began as a hobby was transformed, through curiosity, mentorship, and collaboration, into a contribution to scientists' understanding of the evolutionary history of life on Earth.

Julia Van Etten, a Rutgers School of Graduate Studies alumna, examines water samples using her microscope at home while wearing a Rutgers Geology Museum T-shirt. Photo courtesy of Julia Van Etten.