Seminars

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Danielle Haulsee is the Chief Science Officer at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, specializing in fisheries oceanography and the spatial and behavioral ecology of marine animals. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2017 from the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, focusing her doctoral work on characterizing the movement ecology and social dynamics of a coastal top predator found along the East Coast of the U.S., the sand tiger shark. A key feature of her research is integrating advanced bio-logging (using tags carried by animals to record information), remote sensing and underwater robots to study the impact of a dynamic ocean on the occurrence and distribution of marine fish and sharks. Using these technologies, Danielle focuses her research on tackling applied research questions, contributing to bycatch reduction strategies, impact assessments of offshore wind development, and working towards more effective dynamic ocean management strategies. Her work spans multiple oceans, from studying the movement ecology of sharks and sturgeon in the Atlantic, to the fisheries ecology of billfish in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, to the oceanography of the White Shark Cafe in the Central Pacific and off the Nansen Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Natalia Llopis Monferrer is a postdoctoral fellow at the Carbon Flux Ecology Lab at MBARI. She received her PhD in Chemical Oceanography at the “Université de Bretagne Occidentale” (France). Natalia is a motivated biogeochemist with a passion for understanding how plankton influences the cycling of certain elements in our oceans, working to improve our knowledge of ocean biogeochemical cycles. Her research focuses on the ecology of silicifying Rhizaria, which are eukaryotic, mostly heterotrophic single-celled organisms, globally distributed, dwelling chiefly in the open ocean, from the surface down to bathypelagic depths. The goal of her postdoctoral project at MBARI is to characterize the silicification process in Rhizaria by combining different techniques: (i) exploration of genomic data to characterize the SITs of Rhizaria at different environmental conditions, (ii) targeted collection and maintenance of these delicate protists using cutting-edge technologies (e.g., remote operated vehicles, microfluidics) and, (iii) state-of-the-art imaging techniques, based on optical, fluorescent and electron microscopy, to examine silica deposition at a cellular level. This project will shed light on the little-known ecology of individual Rhizaria, and their ultimate role in relation to diatoms in the global plankton ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Kyle Cavanaugh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at University of California, Los Angeles and Vice Director of the UCLA Marine Center. He received his PhD in Marine Science from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2011 and then completed a postdoc at the Smithsonian Institution. His research involves using satellite imagery to study the drivers and consequences of changes in coastal foundation species such as giant kelp forests and mangroves.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Dr. Tom Turner received his Ph.D. in population biology from UC Davis in 2008. After finishing his postdoc at the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna, Austria, he became an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara in 2009 and in 2015 began work as an associate professor. His work focuses on the diversity, systematics, and ecology of California sponges, particuarly the description of new species in shallow-water ecosystems such as kelp forests.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Barbara Spiecker (she, her, hers) is a deaf marine ecologist at UCSB who is broadly interested in scale-dependent responses of marine communities across space and time. She uses mathematical and statistical tools coupled with experiments and field observations to answer questions related to responses of marine communities to climate change and monitoring and management of marine habitats. She is a co-founder of a non-profit, Atomic Hands that focuses on making science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) engaging through American Sign Language (ASL), empowering the signing community to develop and deliver engaging STEM topics and encourage networking among deaf STEMists. She has a Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from Oregon State University, M.S. in Marine Biology from Northeastern University, and a B.S. in Biology from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Dr. Olavo Marques is an observational oceanographer interested in how waves and turbulence interact with the ocean circulation. He is originally from Brazil, where he got his bachelor of science in oceanography from University of Sao Paulo, and then came to the US where he did his PhD at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). In his PhD research, he used observations from Tasmania to study how deep-ocean internal tides impinge on complex topography over the continental slope and drive near-bottom turbulent mixing. He is currently a postdoc at the Naval Postgraduate School and the UCSD, where he is studying how surface surface waves and coastal processes are impacted by rocky environments, such as those found throughout central California.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Dr. Cyronak runs the Coastal Carbon Laboratory (CCL) in the Institute for Coastal Plain Science at Georgia Southern University. Research in the CCL focuses on the carbon cycle in coastal ecosystems such as estuaries, marshes, coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds. We are interested in the role that these ecosystems play in the global carbon cycle, how they will be affected by climate change, and what role they can play in carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Learn more about the CCL: www.coastalcarbon.org.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

My research interests are Earth history and the evolution of life, and the interactions between the biosphere and the geosphere. As such this research can generally be considered paleontology, insofar as paleontology encompasses all aspects of the history of life. My research incorporates multiple lines of evidence, and multiple tools, to investigate questions in the history of life. These lines of evidence include fossil data, molecular phylogenetics, sedimentary geochemistry, and ecological and physiological data from modern organisms. Ultimately, the goal is to link environmental change with organismal and ecological response through the lens of physiology.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Dr. Veronica Vriesman is a marine scientist with broad interests in climate change and biomineralization. She studies connections between mollusc shells and ocean changes through time. She is especially interested in environmental impacts on bivalve biomineralization, and how we can use shell archives to reveal past environmental conditions over seasonal to millennial scales. Veronica earned her PhD in 2022 from the Ocean Climate Lab in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at UC Davis. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, she studied the shell of the culturally and ecologically significant California mussel to evaluate its utility as a paleoceanographic archive. Veronica is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Dr. Patrick Martone is a professor and phycologist in the Botany Department at the University of British Columbia (UBC). For nearly twenty years, Patrick has been studying the biology and biodiversity of seaweeds in the NE Pacific. Research in his lab focuses on a wide range of topics from cell wall chemistry and tissue development, through ecophysiology and evolution, to ecological interactions and community structure. Patrick is passionate about teaching the wonders of seaweed, inspiring hundreds of students at UBC and the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. He has developed a mobile app for iPhone and Android called the “Seaweed Sorter” that helps users identify (and fall in love with) more than 100 seaweed species along the NE Pacific coast. Patrick is the Vice-President / President-Elect of the Phycological Society of America.