Sara Bender is trained as an ocean scientist and has an interdisciplinary background in the environmental and life sciences. She is interested in the development of new tools and technologies to measure and monitor biodiversity and unravel the complexities of the natural world.

At the Moore Foundation, Sara is a member of the Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems and Marine Microbiology Initiatives, where she focuses on understanding how microbes shape the world around us. She also co-manages the Moore Inventor Fellows program, supporting scientist-inventors with a high potential to accelerate progress in the foundation’s areas of interest: scientific discovery, environmental conservation and patient care. 

Outside of this work, Sara is interested in how science is portrayed and communicated to broader audiences and is a member of the Science Advisory Board for the Sloan-San Francisco Film Society’s Science in Cinema program.

Prior to joining the foundation, Sara was a postdoctoral scholar in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where her research focused on the role of marine microbes in driving biogeochemical cycles. Sara earned a B.A. in biology at Rutgers University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in biological oceanography at the University of Washington.