Sara Gonzalez is a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). As a marine ecologist specializing in seaweeds, she has led research using genomic techniques and field and laboratory experimentation to reveal evolutionary divergence within giant kelp, and to demonstrate methods for heat-tolerant strain selection in sugar kelp. Gonzalez has engaged in international research collaborations on seaweed in Chile, Norway, and South Africa. At BETO, she supports projects on renewable carbon resources for biofuel and co-products. Gonzalez received a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a U.S. Fulbright scholar at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.