Julia Ledbetter (MS Program)

julia.f.ledbetter@gmail.com

Julia’s research focuses on the role of habitat structure in dictating the foraging efficiency of organisms that live in seagrass habitat. Working with a locally abundant fish (juvenile giant kelp fish) that reside in eelgrass habitat in San Diego Bay, Julia is asking novel questions about whether attached epibionts that grow on eelgrass blades affect the ability of kelpfish to find and capture their prey. Her work combines lab experiments on kelpfish behavior, and field experiments that test whether various aspects of eelgrass structural complexity affect mortality risk for eelgrass invertebrates.

Julia completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Puget Sound in 2009, and then worked in environmental education and science instruction at a number of institutions in the Pacific Northwest before coming to SDSU in 2014. She recently was awarded SDSU’s Mabel Myers Scholarship to help fund her master’s research.

Erin Voigt (MS Program)

Erin studied the effects of eelgrass structural complexity on grazing rates of invertebrate herbivores for master’s thesis. She graduated in 2016 and currently is a PhD student in the lab of Dr. David Eggleston at NC State University.

Max Castorani (PhD Program)

Max graduated from SDSU’s Joint Doctoral Program in Ecology (with UC Davis) in 2013. At SDSU/UCD, he studied interactions between eelgrass and other ecosystem engineers, and the effects of an introduced species (the Asian date mussel Arcuatula senhousia) on native bivalves. Max’s PhD work was published in the journals Ecology, Biological Invasions, and the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.  While at SDSU he received the prestigious and highly competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to fund his work, as well as numerous smaller awards and several Best Student Paper/Poster awards. Max currently is an assistant professor in the  Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia.

Ryan Jenkinson (PhD Program)

Ryan graduated from SDSU’s Joint Doctoral Program in Ecology in 2016. While at SDSU/UCD, Ryan worked on interactions between urchins, predators (lobsters and fishes), and algae on temperate rocky reefs through California and Mexico. He is the first person to test the strength of these ecological interactions at very large spatial scales. Ryan currently is a postdoctoral researcher studying the effects of marine protected areas on the abundance and diversity of animals in Northern California kelp forests.

Mallarie Yeager (MS Program)

mallarie.yeager1@gmail.com

Mallarie studies the effects of eelgrass habitat structure on survival and behavior of juvenile giant kelpfish.  This species recruits to eelgrass beds in San Diego, where juveniles hunt for food and seek refuge from larger predators. Mallarie’s research focuses on the way in which eelgrass structural complexity mediates mortality risk and foraging efficiency, and how these relationships change through ontogeny.

Mallarie completed her undergraduate degree at the University of North Florida in 2009 and then worked as a Environmental Scientist for the St. Johns River Water Management District in Florida before coming to SDSU.  To help fund her graduate studies, in 2013 Mallarie received a highly competitive Inamori Fellowship from SDSU, as well as CSU COAST small grants. She is about to finish her degree, and go on to the Marine and Environmental Sciences PhD program at Northeastern University.

Amalia Harrington (MS Program)

Amalia completed her MS degree working on California spiny lobster ecology. She tested how lobster use of rocky shelters influences their ability to defend themselves from predators. She completed her degree in 2014 and now is getting her PhD in marine ecology in the lab of Dr. Richard Wahle at the University of Maine.

Julia Coates (PhD Program)

Julia graduated from SDSU with her PhD in 2013. For her dissertation she studied the processes that control abalone populations in San Diego kelp forests. Her research involved field experiments on abalone movement behavior, genetic analysis (in collaboration with Dr. Andy Bohonak at SDSU), and individual-based modeling. She currently lives in Santa Barbara and is an Environmental Scientist the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Lee Reeve (MS Program)

Lee graduated with her MS degree from SDSU in 2013. At SDSU, she worked on associations between juvenile California halibut and eelgrass habitat in San Diego Bay. Lee studied habitat selection by juvenile halibut and the effects of eelgrass structure on their ability to avoid predators and consume prey. After graduating from SDSU, Lee received a Fulbright Scholarship to study flatfish ecology in Denmark.

Brian Cheng (MS Program)

Brian graduated from SDSU’s Ecology MS program in 2008. At SDSU, he studied the effects of native predators on populations of the introduced Asian mussel Arcuatula senhousia. Brian’s work revealed that a local fishery species, the California spiny lobster, plays a large role in controlling Asian mussel populations in Mission Bay, a San Diego estuary. Brian went on to obtain a PhD from the Graduate Group in Ecology at UC Davis, working with Dr. Ted Grosholz, and presently is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Eliza Moore (MS Program)

Eliza graduated from SDSU in 2008. For her master’s thesis, Eliza studied the relative effects of eelgrass patch edges and eelgrass structural complexity on biodiversity and predator-prey interactions.  She went on to work for the City of San Diego as an environmental scientist, and then to a research assistant position in the lab of Dr. Jon Witman at Brown University.

Chad Loflen (MS Program)

Chad graduated with his MS degree in 2007.  At SDSU, he studied the behavior of California spiny lobsters and compared their antipredator adaptations between sites that varied in predator abundance. Chad currently works for the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board. In the picture shown here, he is tracking spiny lobsters with the help of another former lab member, Kristian Palaoro.

Kelly Tait (MS Program)

Kelly graduated with her MS degree in 2011.  At SDSU her research focused on the effects of eelgrass habitat structure on habitat selection for juvenile fishes and their invertebrate prey. Her study was published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. Kelly currently works as a Senior Environmental Specialist for the San Diego Unified Port District.

kirawa@hawaii.edu

Kira graduated with her MS degree in 2010. Her research focused on California spiny lobster movement behavior, habitat use, and implications for the effectiveness of marine protected areas. Her study was published in Marine and Freshwater Research. Kira currently works as a Project Manager for the Gates Lab at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

Katie Nichols (MS Program)

Katie graduated with her MS degree in 2009.  At SDSU, her thesis focused on predation on sea urchins in the kelp forests of San Diego. Her study, in collaboration with Leah Segui (an undergraduate in our lab who has gone on to get a PhD at the University of Washington), was published in the journal Marine Biology. Katie currently works as a Natural Resource Manager and Ecologist at Ocean Associates in Long Beach, CA.

Jennifer Selgrath (MS Program)

Jennifer graduated from SDSU with her MS degree in 2006. At SDSU, she studied habitat associations of American lobsters in nearhore benthic environments in New England. Her thesis combined experimental ecology on juvenile American lobsters with surveys of cobble habitat across New England coastal waters and GIS analysis. She went on to obtain a PhD with Dr. Amanda Vincent at the University of British Columbia.

Brendan Reed (MS Program)

Brendan graduated with his MS degree in 2005.  At SDSU his research focused on the effects of eelgrass habitat fragmentation on biodiversity of epifaunal communities in San Diego Bay. Brendan currently works as the Director of Environmental Affairs at the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority

Rachel Kushner (MS Program)

Rachel first joined the lab as an undergraduate honor’s thesis student, and then went on to get her MS degree in 2005. Her work focused on top-down (predatory) effects on the invasive Asian mussel in Mission Bay near San Diego. Her work was published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, and contributed to a paper published in Ecology by another former graduate student, Dr. Max Castorani. Rachel went on to get her JD degree from California Western School of Law in 2009, and currently work as a lawyer for Daley and Heft LLP in San Diego.

Linday Teunis (MS Program)

Lindsay graduated with her MS degree from SDSU in 2005. At SDSU, she worked on the role of eelgrass structural complexity in dictating patterns of animal community structure. She currently works as an Ecologist at ICF International in San Diego.

Shay Hengen

Shay was an intern in the lab for two years, and was an important team member for our seagrass research in San Diego Bay and via the Zostera Experimental Network. She is shown here holding tethered amphipods, ready to deploy in the Baltic Sea in Finland, where she helped perform seagrass research.

Alterra Sanchez

Alterra joined the lab as an undergraduate intern in the summer of 2010. She spent the next four years working as an important part of our research team, focusing on seagrass ecology. She performed independent research with some of her undergraduate colleagues, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, and which was presented at conferences. She worked as a lab tech for two years, and at the end of her undergraduate career did an honor’s thesis in the lab, which focused on the effects of contaminants in San Diego Bay on biodiversity and herbivory in seagrass habitat.

Stacey Virtue-Hilborn and Alex Warneke

Stacey and Alex were undergraduate interns in our lab in 2010-2011.  Along with Alterra Sanchez, they performed experiments on fish feeding ecology in seagrass habitat, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. They both greatly assisted with many seagrass-related projects in the lab, and both have gone on to graduate school in marine ecology.

Leah did her undergraduate degree at SDSU and graduated magna cum laude in 2010. In our lab, she not only served as an intern and research technician, but performed a challenging and demanding honors thesis on kelp forest ecology that formed part of a publication in the journal Marine Biology. Her work in our lab involved field work off the coast of La Jolla as well as mathematical models of predator-sea urchin interactions. She now is getting her PhD at Oregon State University with Dr. Mark Novak.

Whitney Dailey

Whitney worked as an intern in the lab for several years during her undergraduate years at SDSU. She was one of the five students selected to participate in the study abroad program as part of our Zostera Experimental Network research in 2014. Whitney is shown here preparing to do field research in Sweden as part of this international experience.