Dr. Eric Collins is the co-lead on GENICE II. The Collins Lab works to understand the origin, evolution, distribution, and function of microorganisms in the cryosphere, including bacteria, archaea, algae, protists, fungi, and viruses. Using high-throughput and real-time sequencing of DNA, they conduct metabarcoding, genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and metatranscriptomics. They also develop software for the analysis and visualization of large datasets using machine learning approaches.