Cherished Past Members…

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Tali Vardi | Alumna |  tvardi@ucsd.edu

 Short Bio: Tali Vardi finished her Ph.D. in Marine Biology in 2011. Tali holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s Degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her master’s work involved sea urchin population studies in the coral reefs of the Israeli Red Sea. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D. Tali worked with the New York City Parks Department’s Natural Resources Group where she obtained and coordinated $10 million in grant funded habitat restorations. These projects tackled erosion control, invasive species management, and wetland construction. Tali also served as a Benthic Ecology Researcher at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research where she conducted long-term monitoring of three primary tropical marine ecosystems, mangroves, coral reefs and sea grass beds, to better understand the effects of urbanization on tropical marine ecosystems. Tali hopes to use her acquired quantitative skills along with the in-depth theoretical ecology and marine biology and oceanography education to influence marine conservation and endangered species policy.

Research Interests: Current research includes population dynamics of the Caribbean Elkhorn Coral, Acropora palmata. Worked with NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center to create a population model using 3D computer modeling to calculate the surface area of A. palmata’s large branching, morphologically plastic form in correlation with underwater linear metrics a precise estimate of the amount of A. palmata that remains on the reef.

Online: “Seeking an Aquatic Baby Boom” | 3D Coral Model Video

Posts:

Notes from the Field: Jamaica

 My Endangered Species is better than yours

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dr. Kristen Marhaver | Alumna|  kmarhave@ucsd.edu

 

Short Bio: Kristen finished her Ph.D. in Marine Biology in 2010 after spending… let’s call it “six-ish” years at SIO. She grew up in Wichita, Kansas (where she learned to scuba dive) and she earned her undergraduate degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia (where she studied coral stress gene expression and reef fish phylogeography).

Research Interests: Kristen’s Ph.D. research examined how the landscape of bacteria across a coral reef affects the survivorship and behavior of juvenile corals. From 2007-2010, she raised broods of larvae from the coral Montastraea faveolata during annual mass-spawning events in Curacao and challenged them to survive in a host of microbial environments, both on the reef and in the lab. She also studied the behavior of swimming coral larvae in response to various microbial environments and antimicrobial compounds. Based on preliminary experiments, she was awarded an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (in the Animal Behavior division) to continue studying how microbes affect the swimming and settlement behaviors of coral larvae. Before settling down with coral larvae, Kristen profiled the viral diversity of the brain coral Diploria strigosa in collaboration with Forest Rohwer at San Diego State University. When she’s not in Curacao watching coral larvae swim, Kristen is a volunteer with the coral aquarists at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Online: “Adventures in science communication that won’t blog you down” WSN Annual Meeting 2010 | “Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra” at ScienceProgress.org | Guest Presenter for NerdNite: the West Coast Tour | Guest Blogger at The Oyster’s Garter (spring 2009); chosen for the “The Open Laboratory 2009: The Best Science Writing on Blogs”

Publications:

Vermeij MJA, Marhaver KL, Huijbers CM, Nagelkerken I, Simpson SD (2010) Coral larvae move toward reef sounds. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10660.

Vermeij MJA, K. L. Barott, A. E. Johnson and K. L. Marhaver. (2010) Release of eggs from tentacles in a Caribbean coral. Coral Reefs 29(2): 411

Marhaver, K.L., Edwards, R.A., and Rohwer, F. 2008  Viral communities associated with healthy and bleaching corals. Environ Microbiol. 10(9):2277-2286

 ———————————————————————————————————————————————–

Currie Saray Dugas | Lab Manager and Research Assistant | cdugas@ucsd.edu

Currie joined the lab in 2009 as a Staff Research Associate and Lab Manager after moving to San Diego from the east coast. Prior to joining the lab she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University (class of 2007). She has studied and worked in field stations in Australia, Panama, and her native country of Costa Rica where she first became interested in marine ecology and conservation. As a lab manager, Currie assists with research, manages student volunteers, and coordinates the activities of the rapidly growing Smith and Sandin Labs. She hopes to use the skills that she has learned in the lab to pursue a career that will continue to allow her to study and protect  the ocean.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

Vanessa Costa | Volunteer

Sierra Basegio | Volunteer

Beth Parvis | Volunteer