The overall theme of Dr. Culley’s research is to better characterize the microbial communities that underlie high-latitude ecosystems and dominate their biodiversity and function. To do so, his research program has focused on characterizing the diversity, dynamics, function, and interactions of viruses and their microbial hosts in representative aquatic and cryospheric ecosystems of the Canadian High Arctic, a region that is rapidly transforming due to climate change. Dr. Culley’s work has led to significant contributions in the fields of virology and Arctic biology, among others. For example, his work resulted in the first characterizations of the wild marine RNA viral community, and showed that these viruses are among the most abundant biological entities in the global ocean. Dr. Culley is a member of numerous local, national, and international organizations, including the Centre for Northern Studies (CNS), and is the principal investigator of a transdisciplinary project examining the microbiology of the last ice zone in the Canadian High Arctic.
In May 2023, Dr. Culley has organized the 11th Aquatic Virus Workshop (AVW11) at Université Laval.
