Technical Skills

I’ve picked up a few skills here and there in my 15 years of experience in the Marine Biology field. I’ve highlighted a few below and am happy to expand on them through conversations!

Diving: I am advanced open water, nitrox, cavern, and AAUS certified. In 2021, I received my rescue diver certification after experiencing an incident in the field that could have easily gone from bad to worse without the intervention of a trained rescue diver.

Cross section of Alitta succinea eggs stained with Toluidine Blue.

uCT: I have experience, and interest in developing my toolbox, with uCT sample preparation and data analysis. I am comfortable using both Dragonfly and Ameria softwares for processing scans.

Histology: I am some experience in fixation, embedding, and sectioning of histological samples. I have used Trichrome and Toluidine blue stains.

Bioinformatics: I have a general background in bioinformatics, but I’m really good at troubleshooting. Most of my experience comes from transcriptome and RNAseq work, as well as constructing CO1 phylogenies.

Field collections: I have experience in tropical and temperate climates collecting marine invertebrates, mostly on coral reefs, mangrove forests, and the intertidal zone. From these experiences, I’ve developed a strong understanding of where and when to target certain species for collections, as well as the ability to employ unbiased sampling methods.

Taxonomy: I am a professionally trained polychaete taxonomist. I have experience with other fauna and am also comfortable identifying echinoderms, cnidarians, and some crustaceans (usually in planktonic stages). I am most comfortable identifying organisms from the Caribbean and the Pacific Northwest.

Somewhere in Northern Florida earning my cavern certification, Spring 2018.