Her research focuses on the roles of microbes in natural environments. Major objectives in Dr. Buchan’s lab include linking microbial taxa to critical ecosystem processes, exploring functional gene diversity and its relation to community structure and biogeochemical processes, and identifying novel enzymes and/or catabolic pathways. Much of her work focuses on the Roseobacter clade, an abundant, broadly distributed, and biogeochemically relevant group of heterotrophic marine bacteria. In addition, Dr. Buchan also examines viruses that infect the Roseobacter clade in order to understand how phage lysis influences Roseobacter populations and to understand the chemical nature of dissolved organic matter that is released due to phage activity. She is also on the faculty of UT’s Genome Science and Technology graduate program and the school’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology.