IWFA SCHOLARSHIP TRUST
SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS' RESEARCH PROJECTS

Lauren Cook:

“Estuaries, situated at the intersection of rivers and the ocean, are dynamic ecosystems home to many commercially and recreationally relevant species. I study the food webs of these systems and how climate change may impact the overall function of the communities residing within them.  Understanding how marine communities change under shifting environmental conditions will serve as a crucial first step for effective conservation and management of these resources moving forward.”

Francis (Frankie) Garraty:

"Nutrient flow across the land-sea interface can link the dynamics of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, yet the influence of humans on cross-ecosystem nutrient transfer remains largely unknown. My project uses motion-triggered cameras to explore the impact of coastal urbanization on shoreline scavenging assemblages along the California coast, a global hotspot of coastline urbanization."

Morgan Jarrett

"My research area revolves around the behavioral and physiological responses of decapod crustaceans to environmental changes. I aim to test if the gill-oxygen limitation theory (GOLT), historically only examined in fishes, can be applied to crustaceans. The application of this theory to decapods could be a revolutionary discovery that links all marine life, especially in the face of future climate change."

Claire Johnson

"The goal of my research is to quantify rates of nitrogen fixation by epiphytes living on pelagic Sargassum, to identify the environmental factors which support high rates of fixation, and to determine the fate of this newly fixed nitrogen in order to better understand the nutrient cycling capabilities of the highly productive Sargassum community."

Riley Jones

Riley is a master’s student at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) where she is researching the impacts of anthropogenic noise pollution on garibaldi territorial behavior and reproductive output. With this research, Riley aims to highlight potential impacts of anthropogenic noise pollution on a fish species that uses sound to communicate.

Laura Lardinois

Laura Lardinois is a PhD student in a joint program between McGill University (Montreal) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. She is fascinated by the trillions of microbes; including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi, that grow on and inside living organisms, forming their microbiome. Her work revolves around marine microbiomes and how they – in tandem with their animal hosts – can survive and adapt to both natural and anthropogenic environmental change. She is currently studying host-microbe interactions in Panama’s beautiful, diverse, yet understudied coral reef fish. 

Lab webpage profile: https://istmobiome.rbind.io/authors/laura-l-lardinois/

Caid Menzel

"My work at East Carolina University focuses on the biotic community within Pamlico Sound, the largest lagoonal estuary in North America. I am conducting a multivariate analysis of a long-term fisheries-independent dataset from a trawl survey to uncover drivers of community shifts and better inform managers, stakeholders, and researchers on the dynamics of the system."