Doctoral Dissertation Committee Members

Dr. Joel Trexler
​Director of Marine Science
Florida International University

Joel Trexler currently serves as my major adviser for my PhD.  I started in the Fall 2012 term and his funding has allowed me to become a research assistant in his lab.  His long-term monitoring projects in the Florida Everglades have become an important component for my dissertation.  His research interests include ecological monitoring, spatial ecology, population dynamics, and life history evolution.
Dr. Yuying Zhang
Assistant Professor
​Florida International University
Yuying Zhang lends her expertise in statistical modeling and stock assessment to my dissertation.  It is through this expertise that she introduced me to the Virtual Population Analysis (VPA) and population based modeling.  One goal of my dissertation is to apply these standard fisheries models to a novel system and species.  This has become a vital part for reconstructing time series data with under-sampled recruits. 

Dr. Ed Houde
Vice President for Education
​University of Maryland

Ed Houde currently serves as my outside committee member at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.  He is the leading expert in larval fish ecology and recruitment biology and has served on numerous panels.  His advisement has introduced me to the "universal process" which describes recruitment variability.  This has become a central focus of my dissertation research.    
Dr. Yannis Papastamatiou
Assistant Professor
​Florida International University
Yannis is a new addition to FIU and his expertise in spatial ecology, energetics, and animal behavior/movement has been invaulable.  He has provided insight into how species may be moving following a disturbance event.  This, combined with endurance tests, has generated new hypotheses into how species may be responding to hydrological stress.  I aim to use his expertise to describe age-specific patterns of dispersal and movement.

Dr. Kevin Boswell
Assistant Professor
Florida International University

Kevin Boswell is a marine ecologist who uses active and passive acoustics to describe abundance and behavior of marine organisms.  His knowledge of classical fisheries science has directed me to form alternative hypotheses of how recruitment is regulated in pulsed wetland ecosystems.  Furthermore, he has helped me address uncertainty in both my sample design and statistical analysis.
Dr. Gary Rand
Professor
Florida International University
Although Gary Rand is an ecotoxicologist, his expertise in fish physiology and swimming behavior has been a vital part in understanding dispersal mechanisms of small fish species in the Florida Everglades.  My dissertation research has used swim chambers and endurance tests to explain interspecific differences in dispersal potential.  Dr. Rand has helped me demonsrate that the ecological implications of swim chambers are under-utilized

Past Collaborators and Mentors

Dr. Blaine Griffen
Associate Professor
​University of South Carolina
Dr. Griffen served as both my academic and research adviser at the University of South Carolina.  It was his Invertebrate Zoology course which got me interested in Community Ecology.  He supported my grant application for the Magellan Scholarship which provided funding for my first research project.  Together, we published this research in Ecology. He continued to advise me until I left to begin my PhD.
Dr. Benjamin Toscano
Post Doctoral Researcher
​Rice University
Dr. Toscano was the graduate student who advised me as an undergraduate researcher.  We spent our summers together at the Baruch Marine Field Lab in Georgetown, SC.  Our research focused on individual trait variation and its influence on trait mediated indirect effects within oyster reef communities.  He is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Rice University under the advisement of Dr. Volker Rudolf.
Dr. Joseph Quattro
Associate Professor
​University of South Carolina
Dr. Quattro served as my first academic and research adviser as an undergraduate student.  I began my career as a researcher in his lab during my sophomore year in college.  His Ichthyology course sparked my interest in fish and put me on that career path.  Following a year of research, I realized that genetics was not where my true interests were.  I then began my career as an ecologist with Dr. Blaine Griffen.