Melissa Garren (2010)

Fellowship Year: 2010
Academic Background: University of California - San Diego - PhD 2011- (Marine Biology)
Current Position: postdoctoral researcher , MIT
Currently Working On: coral disease, coral-bacteria interactions, effects of coastal pollution and climate change on these interactions
Melissa recently received her Ph.D. in Marine Biology at the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studying under Professor Farooq Azam. The focus of her doctoral research was the effects of coastal pollution on the microbial processes that support large-scale ecosystem health. She specifically studied these interactions on coral reefs exposed to two major sources of coastal pollution – aquaculture and sewage effluents – with the aim of finding more sustainable solutions for both aquaculture and sewage treatment practices. She is continuing her work on coral-microbe interactions in a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the lab of Professor Roman Stocker. Here, she is apply cutting edge microfluidic technology to understand how and why so many corals are becoming infected by microbial diseases around the globe. By combining tools from engineering and biophysics, she is able to study coral disease at the scale on which it actually occurs: the microscale. These small-scale interactions drive the large-scale fate and health of global coral reefs. She ultimately hopes to work at the interface of research and policy by facilitating the integration of microbial processes into conservation planning. Melissa holds a B.S. in molecular biology from Yale University and an M.S. in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.
Expertise: Coastal & Marine Issues, Conservation Science & Biology