Thursday, April 7, 9:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
(Tenured Faculty Interview Seminar)
“Eutrophication, Bioturbation, and the Microbial Carbon Cycle in Sediment"
Mark Lever, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Environmental Microbiology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Research field: Environmental microbiology, geomicrobiology, biogeochemistry, microbial ecology.
Dr. Mark Lever is Assistant Professor of Environmental Microbiology in the Institute of Biogeochemsitry and Pollutant Dynamics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). He received a B.A. in Biology and an M.A. in Marine Biology from Boston University. He received a Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina. Dr. Lever’s research examines the role of microorganisms in Earth’s carbon cycle. He explores the mechanistic and quantitative influences of microorganisms on the short- and long-term fate of organic carbon in aquatic sediments and the Earth’s crust. This also includes the effects of anthropogenic activity on short- and long-term carbon-cycling processes.
Update:
Fall Semester 2022
Hired, Associate Professor
Microbiologist
Monday, April 4, 9:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
(Tenured Faculty Interview Seminar)
“Bulk and Compound-Specific Stable Isotope Analysis-Based Insights into the Gulf of Mexico’s Fish Ecology, Marine Biogeochemistry and Oceanography”
Sharon Z. Herzka, Ph.D.
Department of Oceanography, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE), Ensenada, Mexico.
Dr. Sharon Herzka completed her master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. Since 2001, she has been a research professor at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE) in Mexico. She has also served as Head of the Department of Biological Oceanography at CICESE. Her research focuses on marine fish ecology and isotopic ecology, for which she collaborates closely with physical oceanographers and biogeochemists to examine larval transport, connectivity, nutrient sources, and open water oceanography. In recent years, Sharon has worked on various aspects of the oceanography of the Gulf of Mexico, with particular emphasis on the central deepwater region. Within the CIGoM (Gulf of Mexico Research Consortium) project (2015-2022), financed by the SENER-CONACYT Hydrocarbon fund, she coordinated a large multi-institutional research group tasked with establishing an environmental baseline for Mexico’s EEZ. She was responsible for the integration of an extensive environmental database that includes data from 19 cruises that covered Mexican waters, as well as the monitoring of extensive seagrass meadows off Campeche and Yucatan. She also led an interdisciplinary team that developed an online platform for the management of oceanographic expeditions and the environmental database. Lastly, she coordinated the Atlas of the Environmental Baseline of the Gulf of Mexico, an 11-volume set that showcases part of the results obtained by CIGOM. Sharon is currently on sabbatical at TAMU Galveston.
Thursday, March 31, 9:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
(Tenured Faculty Interview Seminar)
"The Forecast Calls for Continuous Snow! How Marine Snow Affects Elemental Cycles in the Ocean"
Kai Ziervogel, Ph.D.
Associate Research Professor, Director, Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory, University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Kai Ziervogel is a Research Associate Professor and Director of the Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. He received a Diploma (equivalent to an M.S. degree) and Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of Rostock (Germany). He has held postdoctoral research positions at the Baltic Sea Research Institute in Germany and the University of North Carolina. His current research addresses interdisciplinary topics on heterotrophic microbial activities within the ocean’s biological pump, and microbial responses to human impacts on marine environments, including oil spills and plastic pollution. His research is timely and important to predicting ecosystem responses and associated alterations in the ocean’s carbon cycle to global environmental change.
Monday, March 28, 9:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
(Tenured Faculty Interview Seminar)
"Gulf-COAWST: A Regional Earth System Modeling Platform for the Gulf of Mexico"
Zuo "George" Xue, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University.
Dr. Z. George Xue is an Associate Professor of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences in the College of the Coast & Environment at Louisiana State University. He holds a joint appointment with the Center for Computation and Technology and is a fellow of the Coastal Studies Institute at LSU. He received a B.E. in Hydro and Engineering Geology from the Ocean University of China, an M.S. in Environmental Sciences from the First Institute of Oceanography (China), and a Ph.D. in Marine Sciences with a minor in Statistics from North Carolina State University. His research interests include sediment, nutrient, and carbon dynamics in coastal oceans, climate and human impacts on a large river and delta systems, and CO2 dynamics in the land-ocean interaction zone.
Research interests: Physical-bio-geochemical modeling, Coastal ocean carbon cycling, Coupled atmospheric-hydrological modeling.
Wednesday, March 23, 12:00 pm, Zoom only.
(Assistant Professor Interview Seminar)
"Eroding Sponges and Wasting Stars: Unifying Ecological and Evolutionary Timescales Using Genomics"
Melissa DeBiasse, Ph.D.
Project Scientist, University of California at Merced. Dawson Lab.
"I am a computational biologist and evolutionary ecologist passionate about understanding how biodiversity is generated. My research program investigates how genomes, populations, and species evolve over time and space. Focusing on marine invertebrates, I use genomic and phenotypic data to: i) compare genome structure and function, ii) infer phylogenomic relationships among taxa and patterns of trait evolution, and iii) measure organismal responses to biotic and abiotic stressors. This dynamic approach connects micro and macroevolutionary processes, allowing me to reconstruct the drivers of divergence, speciation, and diversification."
"I support diversity and inclusion in science regardless of one's gender or LGBTQIA+ identity, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, or immigration or socioeconomic status. Pronouns: she/her."
Monday, March 21, 12:00 pm, Zoom only.
(Assistant Professor Interview Seminar)
"Life Between Worlds: The Ecosystems of the Ocean's Surface"
Rebecca R. Helm, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biology Department, University of North Carolina at Asheville.
"I am fascinated by the ways organisms change through time. Be it evolutionary, developmental, seasonal or daily change. I want to know how this change comes about, and what impact the environment has on organisms as they change, and how changes in organisms in turn impact the environment around them.
I am also passionate about ocean conservation, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdiction."
Seminar tabs are listed in the order of upcoming dates, followed by past seminars (most recent first).
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