Pat Megonigal holds a BS and an MS in Biology from Old Dominion University, and a PhD in Biogeochemistry from Duke University. He was an Assistant Professor of Biology at George Mason University before joining the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in 2001. He is currently President of the Society of Wetland Scientists, and Lead Curator of Dig It! The Secret World of Soil, a new exhibition devoted to Soil that opens in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in July 2008. His major research interests are in Wetland Ecosystems, Climate Change and Microbial Ecology, most of which is focused on tidal marshes of the Chesapeake Bay.