Max (Gordon) Showalter is a graduate student studying bacterial adaptation to harsh polar conditions for a dual PhD in oceanography and astrobiology at the University of Washington. He is the current editor-in-chief for HiveBio Community Lab and a former Science Communication Fellow at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA. Max has a passion for studying extreme bacterial life on Earth and in the Universe, and for communicating stories in science through written and spoken media. Follow him on Twitter at @gshowalt and through his website, gmshowalter.com.