Peter Etnoyer (2005-2009)
Peter was a doctoral fellow at Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies with a background in octocoral systematics, marine ecology, and geographic information systems. His PhD dissertation research at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi examined the diversity and distribution of deep-water octocorals (mostly sea fans, aka gorgonians) on Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. A full biography is here. Peter is currently working full time for NOAA, details of his new position can be found here.
Miriam Goldstein (2009-2012)
Miriam was a Ph.D. student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she studied the ecological impact of plastic debris on zooplankton communities and invasive species transport in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. In August 2009, she led the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX: Blog, Twitter, YouTube). Miriam is an active science popularizer and educator, and has appeared on CNN, CBS, NPR Science Friday, and Marketplace, among many other media outlets. Before joining Dr. M and Kevin Z at Deep Sea News, Miriam blogged at the Oyster’s Garter and at Double X Magazine. Her popular writing has been featured in Slate Magazine and in Open Lab: The Best Science Writing on the Web. Miriam holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a B.S. in Biology from Brown University. Before coming to Scripps, she worked as a construction project manager in New York City, an outdoor educator in New Hampshire, and an environmental consultant in Boston. Miriam is originally from Manchester, New Hampshire. Miriam left DSN to take a prestigious Knauss Fellowship.
Kevin Zelnio (2007-2013, Assistant Editor 2009-2013)
Kevin has a M.Sc. degree in biology from Penn State, a B.Sc. in Evolution and Ecology from University of California, Davis, and worked as an independent scientist, science writer and communications strategist based in Wilmington, NC. Prior to this, he was a researcher at the Center for Marine Science at University of North Carolina, Wilmington, studying mussel population genetics, and the Marine Conservation Molecular Facility of Duke University’s Marine Lab, where he developed microsatellite markers to study population genetics of deep sea inverts. Previous research was centered around the biodiversity, community ecology and systematics of invertebrates at deep-sea chemosynthetic environments. Kevin has described several new species of anemones and shrimp and consults with organizations on taxonomic matters. In 2013 Kevin left DSN to start a brewery in Sweden.
Al Dove (2011-2015, Assistant Editor 2013-2015)
Al Dove is an Australian marine biologist currently serving as Director of Research and Conservation at the Georgia Aquarium Research Center in Atlanta. During undergraduate training in zoology at The University of Queensland he discovered parasitology first hand upon getting infected with bird schistosomes on a field trip; he was immediately grossed out and utterly smitten with the staggering diversity of form and life cycle among the different parasite groups. After an Honours thesis on the taxonomy of flatworm parasites of carangid fishes (jacks), his PhD explored the ecology of parasite exchange between native and introduced freshwater fish in Australia. Since moving to the United States in 2000 he has held positions at the Wildlife Conservation Society (New York Aquarium), Cornell University and Stony Brook University. In the process, his research interests have broadened to include all aspects of aquatic animal health from environmental diseases of lobsters, to parasitic diseases of clams and bacterial infections in fish, at all times adhering to the golden rule of marine biology: “work on something tasty”. In his current role at Georgia Aquarium, he’s had to finally give up that rule and he now studies the biology of whale sharks, including natural history, metabolomics and genomics. After having an epiphany about science communication in the digital age, Al began blogging at DeepTypeFlow in 2009 and has been sharing his passion for marine biology via social media ever since. On the academic side, he has written over 40 peer-reviewed publications, is a co-organizer of the Eastern Fish Health Workshop, and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Beth Orcutt
Beth Orcutt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. Beth has a Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from the University of Georgia, where she studied deep-sea microbes that eat oil and methane. She loves using robots and submarines to visit the seafloor to study the microbial denizens of the deep, and has spent over 500 days at sea. While at sea, Beth enjoys engaging the public in exploration through ship-to-shore education programs like Adopt A Microbe. The views expressed here are Dr. Orcutt’s and not reflective of the views of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences or her funding sources.
Douglas Long
Douglas’ research in the marine sciences focuses primarily on the taxonomy, ecology, and biogeography of sharks, rays, chimeras and deep-sea bony fishes, as well as their fossil history, with the occasional detour into marine mammals. After graduating with a MA in paleontology and a PhD in evolutionary biology at the University of California, Berkeley, he continued as a researcher and then curator at the California Academy of Sciences, and later at the Oakland Museum of California. His adventures include 15 years of collecting whale & seal carcasses with the national Marine Mammal Stranding Network, studying white shark feeding ecology in California, discovering new deep-sea fishes in the Galapagos Islands, hand-collecting baby flounder in muddy estuaries along the entire length of New Zealand’s coasts, plus explorations to Peru, South Africa, Mexico, Myanmar, and 70 other countries. During this time he spent more than 20 years as a science educator with undergraduate students at several California colleges, and continues teaching lab & field courses on evolution, zoology, ecology, and conservation. Through these years of research, expeditions, and teaching, he continues to hone his chops in science communication, and has been featured on the BBC, CNN, FOX, PBS, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and (for better or worse) Discover Channel’s Shark Week.
Jarrett Brynes
Jarrett Byrnes is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts,Boston where his research focuses on the causes and consequences of changes in ocean biodiversity in the anthropocene. He got his Ph.D. from UC Davis in Population Biology in 2008, where he worked out at the Bodega Marine Lab studying how changes in the diversity of predators in the ocean can cascade through whole ecosystems. He was a postdoc at the Santa Barbara Coastal Long-Term Ecological Research site where he fell in love, for once and always, with kelp. But then had a dalliance with data synthesis as a postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis where he helped co-found the #SciFund challenge to help scientists do outreach and crowdfund their research. When not on land teaching students about the ins and outs and awesomeness of statistical modeling, we find Jarrett either underwater wrapped in kelp or wandering the mosquito filled marshes of New England, quadrat in hand. Jarrett comes to DSN after blogging since 2004 at I’m a Chordata! Urochordata! which plunged him into the world of science communication. He also maintains an active citizen science program for the remote sensing of kelp over at Floating Forests.
Rebecca Helm
RR Helm, aka Rebecca, is a postdoc at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she studies circadian rhythms in sea anemones, and jellyfish development and evolution, under the direction of Ann Tarrant. You can learn more about Rebecca’s work here: http://www.rebeccarhelm.com/ Or on the Tarrant lab website: http://web.whoi.edu/tarrant-lab/ When not doing science, you can find Rebecca wandering on the beach, camping in a desert, working for a safari company, or living in a Zen center. But the best place to look would probably be the local tea house, or any other shop that serves croissants.
Rick Macpherson
Rick moved over to DSN from his blog Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets, where he wrote extensively on ocean science and conservation issues since 2006. Rick is a coral reef ecologist, conservationist, and ocean policy specialist with over three decades of experience in creating and expanding marine protected areas, organizing public support for conservation measures, and helping local coastal communities solve environmental challenges. He has a particular focus and interest in the intersection of conservation and marine tourism. Having witnessed the decline of coral reefs during his lifetime, Rick has become a passionate advocate on the role of sustainable tourism as a lever for coral reef conservation. Rick has followed the growth of shark dive tourism as a global industry and has assisted governments and stakeholders in establishing stronger legislative protections for sharks as an investment in shark dive tourism potential. He also recently led the team of local advocates across the state of Hawaii in building public support for the successful expansion by President Obama of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. With a belief and expertise in collaborative solutions, Rick has brokered partnerships across governments, corporations, NGOs, private sector, and local communities to arrive at pragmatic solutions to complex environmental problems. He is principal and founder of Pelagia Consulting and Sustainable Shark Diving. In 2013, he was awarded the Oris/Scuba Diving Magazine Sea Hero of the Year Award in recognition of his achievements in ocean conservation.
Holly Bik
Dr. Holly Bik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine Sciences and Institute of Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia. She obtained her Ph.D. at the National Oceanography Center in Southampton, UK (in conjunction with the Natural History Museum, London), followed by subsequent postdoctoral appointments at the University of New Hampshire, the University of California, Davis. Holly’s research uses badass DNA sequencing and awesome computational biology tools to explore the biodiversity and biogeography of microbial eukaryotes in diverse habitats, with an emphasis on nematode worms in marine and deep-sea sediments. Aside from research, she is heavily involved in science communication and social media, serving as Associate Editor here at Deep Sea News (https://www.deepseanews.com) and maintaining an active presence on Twitter (@hollybik). She has also written guests posts for a number of external sites (including the Guest Blog at Scientific American), and her writing has been featured in the edited printed compilation Open Lab: The Best Science Writing on the Web.
Kim Martini
Kim Martini is a physical oceanographer at the Joint Institute for the Studyof the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she studies internal waves and turbulence. Currently she is focusing on how sea ice loss could alter physical and biogeochemical processes in the Arctic. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2010, she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska for a postdoc. After three years of awesome wilderness living, she moved back to Seattle.Kim’s other passion is new and novel ocean observing technologies. Quite simply, her goal in life is to throw expensive s**t into the ocean. She also believes that broad scale data dissemination is a vital, but often overlooked, part of oceanographic research. Her goal is to create simple and universal tools to not only quickly process data, but for researchers to easily share these data using standardized public repositories.