Graduate student Laurel Field's research areas include estimating the climate vulnerability of nearshore ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, cumulative impact mapping, and the development of adaptive management responses to climate impacts. She conducts research in Bonaire, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, where she works closely with the conservation organization Stichting Nationale Parken Bonaire that manages the National Marine Park that encircles the island. As part of the climate resilience-focused research she is conducting in Bonaire, she is tracking the outcomes of coral bleaching events in Bonaire, with particular focus on quantifying bleaching severity by depth and species.

Graduate student Allie Blanchette is interested in studying variation in stress and survival of marine foundation species, and applying this research to help improve conservation and restoration outcomes. For her PhD, Allie is assessing how performance of restored corals varies based on genotype and how farmer damselfish can have a wide range of impacts on corals, from parasitism to mutualism. To conduct this research, Allie works in Bonaire (Caribbean Netherlands) and Moorea (French Polynesia), and she established a collaboration with the coral restoration organization Reef Renewal Bonaire.

Dr. Scott Burgess is a marine ecologist. His research focuses on larval dispersal, reproductive strategies, and adaptation in organisms such as corals and bryozoans, among others. He conducts field experiments and surveys using SCUBA in coastal waters off the FSUCML and at Moorea, French Polynesia.

Divemaster and graduate student Adin Nahoa Domen's research interests are developing around how the local marine communities are adjusting and adapting to oyster reef restoration efforts done by the Apalachicola Bay System Initiative.

Graduate student Rachael Best is investigating how gorgonian octocorals in the northeast Gulf of Mexico are able to persist under variable and changing environmental conditions despite being unable to move. Octocorals are distributed globally, yet they are largely understudied. She is working out of the FSU Marine Lab on a species of gorgonian that is prevalent locally to evaluate how mechanisms, such as phenotypic plasticity, are driving observed patterns of their morphology and distribution between inshore and offshore limestone reefs.

PADI OWSI Bobbie Renfro is generally interested in conducting research, teaching, and public outreach related to tropical marine ecology and anthropogenic disturbance. Specifically, her dissertation research explores the effects of nutrient enrichment on Caribbean reef sponges. She is also currently using her PADI Pro skill set to guide volunteer recreational divers on sponge restoration dives to restore the famous Alligator Reef in the Florida Keys with the Islamorada Conservation and Restoration Education group.

Dr. Don Levitan’s diverse research on sea urchins includes conducting field experiments on gamete fertilization and reproductive isolation, molecular studies of paternity, hybridization and protein evolution, phylogenetic analysis of trait evolution as well as theoretical explorations of sexual selection and gamete evolution. He conducts research at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Center (British Columbia); the Virgin Islands Research Station in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and at the Smithsonian field stations in Panama and Belize.

Dr. Sandra Brooke's research primarily focuses on sessile benthic fauna associated with hard-bottom habitats and chemosynthetic ecosystems. She has worked throughout the US Pacific and Atlantic coasts including the Gulf of Mexico and also in international waters off Costa Rica, Samoa, Bahamas and Italy. Research topics include characterization of communities associated with shallow and deep sea habitats and biology of benthic invertebrates.

Dr. Markus Huettel’s research addresses the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in the coastal ocean. A primary interest is the flux of oxygen across the sediment – water interface because oxygen consumption is a good proxy for organic carbon mineralization in marine sediments. This flux is measured with instrumentation that he has developed with his colleague, Dr. Peter Berg (University of Virginia). One of the primary study sites for this research is in the Florida Keys.