Scientists
Carin Ashjian
Senior Scientist
Research Interests: Zooplankton ecology; biological/physical associations and influence of advection on species distributions and community structure; remote sensing of zooplankton (acoustic, video); arctic ecosystems; eastern and western boundary currents.
Contact: cashjian@whoi.edu
Don Anderson
Senior Scientist
Research Interests: Phytoplankton physiological ecology; red tides / harmful algal blooms (HABs); ciguatera; dinoflagellate toxins; dinoflagellate resting cysts; molecular and immunological probes; dinoflagellate "omics"; ocean instrumentation - biosensors for HABs; prevention, control, and mitigation strategies for HABs.
Contact: danderson@whoi.edu
Rebecca Gast
Associate Scientist with Tenure
Research Interests: I'm interested in how marine protists (algae and protozoa) not only survive, but thrive, in the extremes of polar marine environments. In particular, I am studying two alternative modes of nutrition acquisition that may play roles in helping algae to survive the 3-4 months of darkness during polar winters. My work focuses on algae that can consume particles (mixotrophy) and a dinoflagellate that steals chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) from another alga in order to become photosynthetic. Our work suggests that in the Antarctic, mixotrophic algae, rather than traditional heterotrophs, are the important consumers of bacteria in the spring, which could affect the flow of carbon through the food web. In the Arctic, we found that picoeukaryotic phytoplankton were potentially consuming more of the bacterial biomass in the fall than either larger mixotrophic algae or the heterotrophic protists were, again potentially impacting where carbon goes. Currently I am using transcriptomic approaches to understand how the dinoflagellate maintains the stolen chloroplasts, and how different mixotrophs regulate genes associated with phagocytosis.
Contact: rgast@whoi.edu
Joel Llopiz
Associate Scientist
Research Interests: Larval fishes, fisheries oceanography, zooplankton, trophic ecologies of fish and fish larvae, planktonic food webs.
Contact: jllopiz@whoi.edu
Michelle Shero
Associate Scientist
Research Interests: The Shero Lab focuses on the linkages between energy balance and physiological condition, behavior, and reproductive success of marine mammals. Understanding how these are ultimately linked with complex, multifaceted traits such as performance and life-long animal fitness has important implications for population dynamics and conservation.
Contact: mshero@whoi.edu
Stephanie Jenouvrier
Associate Scientist with Tenure
Research Interests: Large changes are occurring in the Earth’s climate and in the ocean’s physical characteristics and climate models project that these changes will continue into the next century.
Contact: sjenouvrier@whoi.edu
Rubao Ji
Senior Scientist
Research Interests: Coupled biological-physical numerical modeling. Food web dynamics in estuarine and coastal ocean. Phytoplankton bloom dynamics. Zooplankton population dynamics model.
Contact: rji@whoi.edu
Sam Laney
Associate Scientist with Tenure
Research Interests: I'm an oceanographer and engineer with broad interests in marine phytoplankton ecology. The questions that motivate me the most are those that examine how phytoplankton respond to changes in the oceanic light environment.
Contact: slaney@whoi.edu
Ann Tarrant
Associate Scientist with Tenure
Research Interests: Physiological ecology of copepods; regulation of diapause, adaptation and acclimation.
Project: Copepod Diapause
Contact: atarrant@whoi.edu
Peter Wiebe
Scientist Emeritus
Research Interests: The quantitative population ecology of zooplankton with emphasis on zooplankton small-scale distribution and abundance.
Contact: pwiebe@whoi.edu