Ronald Oremland was an American microbiologist, astrobiologist, and emeritus senior scientist at the United States Geological Survey.

in biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1968, where he was inspired by Hermann Ehrlich's geomicrobiology course to pursue a career in marine microbiology.

[3] In 1976, he received a PhD from the University of Miami under the mentorship of Barrie F. Taylor, where he worked on methane cycling in tropical marine sediments.

[4] He went on to a postdoc at the NASA Ames Research Center, where he worked with Melvin P. Silverman on sulfate-reducing bacteria.

[5][6] From 1977 to 2019, Oremland conducted research at the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park on the microbial metabolism in extreme environments including Mono Lake.