UW faculty, scientists, and staff studying marine biology come from diverse backgrounds and work in disciplines all over campus, including Anthropology, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Biology, Oceanography, and Psychology, among others. These short biographies introduce the range and scope of research interests, projects, and perspectives that our marine biologists explore.
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Core Marine Biology Minor | Marine Biology Teaching | Emeritus/Retired
Core Marine Biology Minor Faculty
Emily Carrington
Associate Professor, Biology, Friday Harbor Laboratories
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Emily Carrington investigates the physiological ecology of marine organisms. She is particularly interested in the functional design of organisms that inhabit physically demanding environments, such as wave-swept rocky shores, where thermal, osmotic, and hydrodynamic conditions can be extreme. Her research involves both plants and animals and spans many levels of biological organization, from the mechanics of biological materials, to the persistence of populations, to the characterization of the physical environment and how it influences biological processes.
M. Claire Horner-Devine
Assistant Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Claire Horner-Devine is interested in understanding the primary factors affecting species’ distribution and maintenance of biological diversity. She is also interested in how anthropogenic activities influence natural communities and ecosystem processes. Her focus is on the distribution of microbial communities and their influence on ecosystem processes. She addresses questions regarding spatial and temporal patterns of the microbial diversity and community composition and feedbacks with nutrient cycling and other organisms. Current work is focused on microbes in Hood Canal, WA, as well as the impacts of an invasive eelgrass on sediment processes and communities in Padilla Bay, WA.
Rick Keil
Associate Professor, Oceanography
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Rick Keil studies preservation and degradation of organic compounds in aquatic environments, global carbon cycles, microbial processes that lead to organic matter burial or preservation, sorptive processes between organics and mineral surfaces, and application of flow-based separation techniques to process and study individual components of complex mixtures.
Julia Parrish
Professor/Associate Director, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Julia Parrish is interested in behavior of organisms living in groups (like schools of fish and colonially nesting seabirds), seabird ecology, and marine conservation. She is also involved in a number of projects including the COASST citizen science project dedicated to involving volunteers in the collection of high quality data on the status and trends of coastal resources.
Gabrielle Rocap
Associate Professor, Oceanography
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Gabrielle Rocap is interested in the ecology and evolution of marine cyanobacteria. Her specific areas of research interest include: genetic diversity and ecotype distributions in coastal and open ocean cyanobacterial populations, comparative genomics of Prochlorococcus, transcriptional profiling and genomic analysis using microarrays.
Marine Biology Teaching Faculty
E. Virginia Armbrust
Professor, Oceanography
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Virginia Armbrust is interested in the behavior and growth of phytoplankton populations in dynamic environments. Currently, there are five ongoing research projects in her lab: genetic and physiological diversity in field populations of the centric diatom (Ditylum brightwellii), sexual reproduction in the centric diatom (Thalassiosira weissflogii), photorespiration in diatoms, response of bacteria to organic compounds excreted by diatoms, and genetic and physiological diversity with eukaryotic nanoplankton.
David A. Armstrong
Professor, Director, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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David Armstrong is interested in predicting possible deleterious effects of development, such as dredging, oil exploration, and materials disposal, on crustacean populations. Specific topics of research interest include: population dynamics and production, spatial and temporal distribution, habitat requirements, reproductive cycles, feeding strategies, energetic requirements, and toxicant effects as gauged by some of these factors on crabs and shrimp. His lab also studies the importance of major coastal estuaries to early juvenile stages of Dungeness crab, Cancer magister, that enter as megalopae and metamorphose on a variety of substrates.
John A. Baross
Professor, Oceanography
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John Baross is interested in the field of biological oceanography. Specific topics of research interest include: thermophilic microorganisms from volcanic environments, the origin and evolution of life and life on other planets and moons, and microbial ecology of the Columbia River estuary.
David A. Beauchamp
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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David Beauchamp is interested in basic and applied questions that link individual behavior to community-level processes influencing the structure and function of aquatic food webs. Specific topics of research interest include: aquatic community ecology, food web modeling, native-nonnative interactions, behavior, population assessment, bioenergetics modeling, and hydroacoustics.
P. Dee Boersma
Professor, Biology
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Dee Boersma is interested in ecology and conservation biology. Specific topics of research interest include: how seabirds balance different selective forces, respond to environmental variability, and how they can be used as reflectors of environmental change. Her lab uses satellite telemetry to determine the foraging area of Magellanic and Rockhopper penguins in Argentina and the Falkland Islands. The lab focuses on identifying places of particular importance in the protection of these birds.
Rose Ann Cattolico
Professor, Biology; Adjunct Professor, Oceanography
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Rose Ann Cattolico is interested in understanding the evolution and function of the chloroplast genomes in rhodophytic (red), chromophytic (green), and chromophytic (brown) algae. Specific topics of research interest include: analysis of the evolution and phylogeny of the chloroplast genomes via sequence analysis of an array of chloroplast genes, determination of the effect of environmental cues (e.g. light quality and quantity) on chloroplast genes, extension of the database for chloroplast genome structure of marine plants, research on the mechanisms of signal transduction including characterizing a protein encoded in the chloroplast which is a member of the "Response Regulator" superfamily of transcriptional regulator proteins, and research on the Calvin Cycle enzyme, phosphoribulokinase (PRK).
Jody Deming
Professor, Oceanography
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Jody Deming is interested in understanding how microbes - bacteria and archaea - manage to survive, grow, and reproduce under extreme conditions, focusing recently on adaptations and evolutionary processes in very cold saline ice formations. Ongoing projects address the various roles of extracellular enzymes, exopolymeric substances, and viruses in determining microbial life in ice (or in the cold source waters or sediments prior to freezing), whether the ice is natural sea ice, artificial ice made under controlled conditions or hypothesized sites for life on icy moons and planets in our solar system.
Megan N. Dethier
Research Professor, Biology, Friday Harbor Laboratories
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Megan Dethier is interested in marine ecology, especially the ecology of shorelines. Specific topics of interest are: plant-herbivore interactions, especially the roles of algal functional morphology, chemical defenses, and ecological refuges; the effects of intertidal stresses (e.g., desiccation) on energy allocation patterns in intertidal algae - how algae make "decisions" when stressed about how to allocate energy between growth, reproduction, and defense; the classification, long-term monitoring, and maintenance of biodiversity of intertidal habitats. She also is interested in invertebrate functional morphology, especially morphological features that confer resistance to predators.
Tim Essington
Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Tim Essington is interested in food web interactions involving fish in marine, estuarine, and freshwater habitats. Specific topics of research interest include: analysis of tropical tunas, sharks, and fisheries in the central Pacific, analysis of cod and clupeid dynamics in the Baltic Sea, understanding spatial scales of trophic interactions along continental shelf ecosystems, and identifying trophically mediated trade-offs between fisheries.
C
arolyn Friedman
Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Carolyn Friedman is interested in the health of marine and freshwater shellfish. Her lab participates in collaborative research that focuses on the investigation of infectious and non-infectious diseases of wild and cultured marine invertebrates and in ecosystem health: population dynamics, genetics and restoration. Specific topics of research interest include: disease and genetic interactions between wild and cultured geoducks, population dynamics and restoration of the Pinto abalone, summer mortality and herpes virus infections of the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas. Her lab is also currently developing tools to control and diagnose Withering Syndrome in abalone and is investigating the development of resistance to Withering Syndrome in California abalones, Haliotis spp. Her lab has begun to develop molecular tools (quantitative PCR)to aid in the investigation of the role of pathogens impacting Bering Sea animals (Hematodinium in Tanner and Snow crabs and Ichthyophonus in Pollock). Finally her lab is examining possible etiologies of recent marked declines in freshwater mussels in King County.
Vincent F. Gallucci
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Vincent Gallucci is interested in examining the last decade of conservation, management, and population dynamics of elasmobranchs, especially sharks. Specific topics or research interest include: dynamics of benthic populations such as bivalves and crustaceans, mathematical methods consisting of dynamical systems and statistical analyses applied via modeling and risk analyses, and natural resource conflict resolution.
Daniel Grünbaum
Associate Professor, Oceanography
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Daniel Grünbaum is interested in a cross-disciplinary array of scientific approaches from population biology, behavioral ecology, mathematical biology, biomechanics, and fluid dynamics. Specific topics of research interest include: quantitative relationships between short-term, small-scale processes, such as individual movement behaviors, and their long-term, large-scale population level effects, such as population fluxes and distributions.
Lorenz Hauser
Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Lorenz Hauser is interested in the application of molecular markers to problems in ecology and evolutionary biology. Specific topics of research interest include: anthropogenic disturbance exploitation and pollution as evolutionary model systems, introduced species, fisheries genetics, conservation genetics, and genetic structure within populations.
James Ha
Research Associate Professor, Psychology
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James Ha is interested in the social behavior of highly cognitive animals. He has ongoing research efforts in two areas: 1) primate development, behavior, and reproduction, and 2) behavioral ecology and foraging behavior of corvids (crows). In addition, he has recently developed a research program in orca social organization.
Russell P. Herwig
Research Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Russell Herwig is interested in the microbiology of aquatic environments. Specific topics of research interest include: ballast water and control of introduction of non-indigenous species, microbiology of contaminated groundwater, and microbiology of larval fish. His lab has also participated for nearly 10 years on a bioremediation related project focused on the aerobic and anaerobic transformation of chlorinated solvents and the identification of microorganisms capable of transforming these contaminants.
Ray Hilborn
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Ray Hilborn is interested in fisheries population dynamics and management, natural resource conservation, and fishery resources management of the west coast of the U. S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Specific topics of research interest include: explicit spatial modeling of populations, design of adaptive management systems for natural resources, the behavior and dynamics of fishing fleets, relating models to data using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods, fisheries stock assessment and population viability analysis. His also has major projects on salmon in Western Alaska, salmon and marine fishes on the west coast of the lower 48 states, and stock assessments and marine mammal interactions in New Zealand marine fisheries.
John K. Horne
Research Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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John Horne is interested in three distinct but related areas: scale-dependent processes influencing aquatic organism distributions, predator-prey interactions and the application of acoustics to aquatic ecology and resource management. Specific topics or research interest include: spatial and temporal patchiness of organism distributions, spectral analysis and bioenergetic models to examine predator and prey interactions, and fish distribution/abundance data sampling using scientific echosounders in an attempt to compare predictions from morphologically based acoustic models to laboratory and field measurements.
George L. Hunt
Research Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Deborah Kelley
Professor, Oceanography
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Julie Keister
Assistant Professor, Oceanography
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Julie Keister’s research focuses on the physical and biological processes that effect abundances and distributions of zooplankton in coastal ecosystems. She works on interdisciplinary projects using a combination of field collections, satellite data, and laboratory experiments to examine physical and biological patterns. Specific topics of interest or research include: basin-scale links between physical dynamics (winds, circulation, stratification) and zooplankton populations in the Pacific Ocean, effects of dissolved oxygen concentration on distributions of zooplankton in Puget Sound, Washington, and the role of mesoscale circulation features in the cross-shelf flux of carbon in coastal upwelling areas.
David Kimelman
Adjunct Professor, Biochemistry
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David Kimelman is interested in the intercellular signals involved in early vertebrate development. Specific topics of research interest include: understanding the role of each intercellular signaling factor in specifying cell fate in the early frog and fish embryo and intracellular signaling pathways involving signaling factors that are likely to have a major role in dividing the early embryo into regions with distinct cellular identities.
Terrie Klinger
Associate Professor, Marine Affairs
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Terrie Klinger is interested in the application of genetic, population, and ecosystem-based studies to marine environmental decision-making. Specific topics of research interest include: population biology and ecology of kelps and other seaweeds, effects of global change on early development in seaweeds, ecological impacts and recovery from the Exxon Valdez and other oil spills, effects of thermal discharge into the marine environment, biosafety assessment of engineered genes in the environment, and implementation of marine protected areas.
Evelyn J. Lessard
Associate Professor, Oceanography
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Evelyn Lessard is interested in microzooplankton ecology. Specific topics of research interest include: ecology and physiology of heterotrophic dinoflagellates, oceanic and coastal microbial food web dynamics, role of protists in bioremediation in sediments, and immunofluorescent probes for tracing trophic transfers.
Marvin D. Lilley
Professor, Oceanography
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Marvin Lilley is interested in both chemical and biological oceanography. Specific areas of research interest include: chemistry and microbiology of hydrothermal systems as they relate to volatiles, development of instruments for use in hydrothermal systems, and biogeochemical cycles of H2 and CH4 in aquatic environments.
Claudia E. Mills
Affiliate Professor, Biology, Friday Harbor Laboratories
Website | Website
Claudia Mills is interested in gelatinous zooplankton and ocean conservation. Specific topics or research interest include: collaborative fieldwork working toward a global sense of the biology, ecology, biodiversity, and evolution of medusae and ctenophores. She also studies the impacts of alien marine species in near shore ecosystems.
Robert Morris
Assistant Professor, Oceanography
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My laboratory uses cultivation, genomic, and proteomic approaches to study relationships between biogeochemical cycles and microbial processes in the oceans. We are specifically interested in exploring the diversity and metabolism of dominant uncultured bacterioplankton.
M. Patricia Morse
Visiting Professor, Biology
M. Patricia Morse is interested in molluscan biology and science education. Specific topics of research interest include: microscopic analysis (transmission and scanning electron and confocal microscopy) of the bivalve heart-kidney system as well as molluscan meiofaunal ecology and systematics studies. She currently serves as Principal Investigator for the Independent College Office on an NSF K-12 Partnership project and chairs a National Academies of Sciences NRC Committee on Attracting Science and Mathematics PhDs to K-12 Education.
Kerry Naish
Associate Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Jan Newton
Principle Oceanographer, Applied Physics Lab
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Jan Newton is interested in the production and export of organic material in marine systems. Specific topics of interest include: food-web and seasonal effects in marine systems, the use of chlorophyll and degradation pigments as tracers of material flux, estuarine/coastal dynamics and marine water quality issues, and the effect of climate and ENSO.
Theodore W. Pietsch
Professor and Curator of Fishes, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences & Burke Museum
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Ted Pietsch is interested primarily in marine ichthyology, especially the biosystematics, zoogeography, and behavior of deep-sea fishes. He also has published extensively in the history of ichthyology. A specific topic of research interest is the reproductive biology of deep-sea ceratoid anglerfishes. As curator of the UW Fish Collection (www.UWFishCollection.org), he is also interested in biotic survey and inventory, having conducted a long series of expeditions to collect plants and animals in the Russian Far East.
André E. Punt
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Andre Punt is interested in biomathematics, multispecies modeling, population dynamics, and stock assessment. Specific topics of research interest include: developing new methods for assessing fish and marine mammal populations, evaluating the performance of existing methods for assessing and managing renewable resource populations, and Bayesian assessment and risk analysis methods to examine modern fisheries management.
Thomas P. Quinn
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Thomas Quinn is interested in fish behavior and ecology. Specific topics of research interest include: migratory behavior, habitat requirements, and spawning behavior of salmon and trout. His lab also blends field techniques such as tagging, telemetry and direct observations with laboratory experiments.
Steven Roberts
Assistant Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Steven Roberts is interested in the physiology of aquatic organisms as it relates to aquaculture and natural resource conservation. Specific topics of research interest include: stress response, immune function and growth physiology. The primary research approaches involve characterizing the transcriptome of aquatic organisms through gene expression analysis.
Jennifer Ruesink
Associate Professor, Biology
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Jennifer Ruesink is interested in using experiments to reveal mechanisms underlying biotic patterns based on understanding humanity's impacts on the global ecosystem. Specific topics of research interest include exploring thresholds in species interactions, introduced species, and biological diversity and ecosystem functioning.
Daniel Schindler
Associate Professor, Biology, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Daniel Schindler focuses his research on understanding the causes and consequences of dynamics in aquatic ecosystems. Specific topics of research interest include: the effects of changing climate on trophic interactions and ecosystem services provided by aquatic ecosystems, fisheries as large-scale drivers of ecosystem organization, the importance of anadromous fishes for linking marine ecosystems to coastal aquatic and riparian systems, and the importance of aquatic-terrestrial coupling in the organization of aquatic ecosystems.
Kenneth Sebens
Professor, Biology, Friday Harbor Laboratories
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Charles A. Simenstad
Research Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Charles Simenstad is interested in studying shallow-water communities and food webs of estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems throughout Puget Sound, the Washington coast, and Alaska. Specific topics of research interest include: exploring the ecological mechanisms whereby estuarine and coastal wetlands support fish (especially juvenile Pacific salmon), basic ecosystem-, community- and habitat-level interactions with emphasis on predator-prey relationships, and enhancement of estuarine and coastal wetland ecosystems.
Joseph Sisneros
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Website
Joseph Sisneros is interested in the plasticity of neural mechanisms and behavior. His research program focuses on the adaptive plasticity of sensory systems for the encoding of biological relevant signals used during social and reproductive behaviors. Fish are used as model systems to investigate the ontogenetic and sexual-maturity dependent changes in the response properties and function of sensory systems, specifically the auditory and electrosensory systems of fishes.
Eric A. Smith
Professor, Anthropology
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Eric Smith is interested in the evolutionary-ecological analysis of production and reproduction. Current research interest primarily involves the Inuit (Canadian Eskimos) of arctic Canada as well as communities in the Torres Strait (tropical Australia) that examine foraging decisions in relation to reproductive strategies, gender relations, and village politics among the Meriam, a Melanesian island population.
Richard R. Strathmann
Professor, Associate Director, Biology, Friday Harbor Laboratories
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Richard Strathmann is interested in the functional and historical constraints on developmental adaptations of marine invertebrates. Specific topics of interest include: evolution of rates of development, constraints on parental protection of embryos, morphological plasticity in response to food, larval feeding mechanisms, and evolutionary transitions between modes of development. His lab is also working on larval dispersal, adequacy of cues to favorable sites for settling larvae, relationships between adult size and brooding, hermaphroditism, fertilization success, and functional consequences of coloniality.
Glenn VanBlaricom
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Glenn VanBlaricom is interested in aquatic and marine wildlife, community ecology, and ecological consequences of oil spills in marine environments. Specific topics of research interest include: community ecology of sea otters in the coastal marine habitats of Russia and the west coast of the US, the translocation of sea otters in order to establish a new population in California, and interactions of other aquatic wildlife and their ecosystems in Washington.
J. Robert Waaland
Professor, Biology
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Robert Waaland is interested in the biology of the algae with an emphasis on seaweeds. Specific topics of research interest include: studies involving the biology of eelgrass meadows and the systematics and phylogeny of certain seaweeds (e.g., the Bangiaceae [Stiller & Waaland 1996, 1993] in the red algae and the Ulvaceae in the green algae).
Peter D. Ward
Professor, Biology
Website
Peter Ward is interested in patterns of speciation in the ectocochliate cephalopod nautilus and processes of distinction in ancient cephalopods. Specific topics of research interest include: live capture and transport of nautilus specimens to the U.S. where shell biometric and gel electrophoretic research is conducted and fossil work taking place in France and Spain looking for patterns of survival and extinction in ammonites and nautiloids.
Graham Young
Professor, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Emeritus/Retired Faculty
Karl Banse
Professor Emeritus, Oceanography
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Karl Banse is interested in plankton ecology and biology. Specific topics of research interest include: plankton production and hydrography, especially in the Arabian Sea, and methodology in plankton work.
Robert C. Francis
Professor Emeritus, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Robert Francis is interested in fisheries management, marine ecosystem dynamics, and fisheries oceanography. Specific topics of research interest include: understanding the structure and dynamics of large marine ecosystems, effects of harvest and physical forcing on marine ecosystems, and quantitative fishery science (e.g. statistics, mathematical modeling, population and/or ecosystem dynamics).
Bruce Frost
Professor, Oceanography
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Bruce Frost is interested in many facets of oceanography. Specific topics of interest include: micro-scale foraging strategies of marine microorganisms within physical support matrices (particle aggregates, sediments, sea ice), especially as they influence material cycles and the degradation of organic pollutants (bioremediation), molecular enzymatic basis for psychrophily in marine bacteria and relevance to polar ecology biotechnology, bioremediation, and astrobiology.
Katherine Graubard
Research Professor Emerita, Biology
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Katherine Graubard is interested in the field of neurobiology. Specific topics of research interest include: functional plasticity of neurons and animal behavior and the role of nitric oxide and the second messenger, cyclic GMP, in the development and modulation of the stomatogastric nervous system in crabs and lobsters.
Alan J. Kohn
Professor Emeritus, Biology
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Alan Kohn is interested in evolutionary processes that have led to high biotic diversity in tropical marine environments. Specific topics of research interest include: elucidating important evolutionary trends in diversity, morphology, distribution, and ecology of marine mollusks, evolution of taxonomic diversity, and relationships between larval developmental mode and biogeographic patterns.
Eugene N. Kozloff
Professor Emeritus, Biology
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Eugene Kozloff is interested in systematics and functional morphology of marine turbellarians, and the biology of invertebrates. Specific topics of research interest include: differentiation, dedifferentiation, and redifferentiation of an acoel flatworm; acoel fauna of the region. Dr. Kozloff is based at Friday Harbor Laboratories.
Bruce Miller
Professor Emeritus, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
Bruce Miller is interested in the ecological life history of marine fishes. Specific topics of research interest include recruitment variability in rockfishes, and a variety of studies on the ecological and early life history of marine fishes.
Robert T. Paine
Professor Emeritus, Biology
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Robert Paine is interested in factors organizing and, therefore, producing observable structure on a diverse rocky shore exposed to heavy wave action. Specific topics of research interest include: predator mediated coexistence, the strength of interactions and food web structure, the interplay between grazing intensity and benthic algal production, and factors generating alternative community states.
Gordie Swartzman
Professor Emeritus, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
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Gordie Swartzman is interested in ecological simulations, spatial data analysis (spatial statistics), and developing user-friendly front ends for various customized application packages. Specific topics of research interest include: spatially explicit phenomena in ecological systems, patchily distributed fish (fish schools) and their prey patches, and ecological simulation models that are evaluated by developing models of plankton dynamics in repeatable microcosms (having true replicates).
A.O. Dennis Willows
Professor Emeritus, Friday Harbor Laboratories, Biology
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Dennis Willows is interested in neurophysiology of marine mollusks. Specific topics of research interest include: studying the neural circuits underlying control of feeding and magnetosensory orientation behaviors and using behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular/biochemical techniques to sort these out. In particular, the Willows lab is trying to determine which central nervous system circuits, neurons and peptides are responsible for detecting and coordinating responses to the geomagnetic field and to rheotactic (water current) stimuli.