My research is motivated by several general interests: (1) the evolution of chemical and structural resistance, (2) Invertebrate microbial interactions, particularly focussing on microbial pathogens, 3) Impacts of Climate change on marine communities. ||Our current research is focused on the form, function, and evolution of defenses of marine invertebrates against their predators and competitors. Using a primarily experimental approach, I and my students are working on projects in temperate and tropical oceans. Our current work is focussed on chemical and structural mechanisms of disease resistance in Caribbean gorgonian corals. These soft corals are heavily endowed with biologically active compounds that are anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and deterrent to fish and some invertebrate predators. My particular focus now is on mechanisms of disease resistance to a fungal pathogen of sea fans. The fungal pathogen Aspergillus sydowii is currently affecting sea fans (Gorgonia ventalina and G. flabellum) throughout the Caribbean. The disease causes variable-sized lesions and even colony death at some sites and has been a productive system for empirical and modelling studies. At some sites in the Florida Keys and San Salvador Bahamas colonies are undergoing substantial mortality from the disease. The chemical extracts of the two species of sea fan are fungi-static, leading us into an investigation of the chemical mechanisms of disease resistance (collaboration with Advion Biosciences). Our work is moving into genomic approaches to the study of innate immunity in the evolutionarily basal cnidaria.

At COrnell, my fcus is to teach undergraduate courses in Marine Ecology and Invertebrate Biology. My primary courses are Marine Ecology and Invertebrate Biology (taught at Shoals MArine LAb), and I teach modules and am listed as an instructor in Chemical Ecology and Dynamics of MArine Ecosystems. I also teach a Field graduate course in HAwaii, with Nelson HAirston and Jed Sparks.||This year, I was awarded two grants by NSF to teach workshops on Ecology of INfectious DIsease. I ran a meeting at Cornell for 120 participants, and funded 25 graduate students and postdocs to participate in a 3 day workshop on Environmental Drivers of Infectious Disease. The second workshop grant is for a 5 year series of Disease Ecology Workshops.

Through our World Bank Program on Coral Reef SUstainability, we regularly give workshops on methods in Coral and Marine DIsease. This past year, we ran 2 workshops in the Philippines, attended by local adn regional scientists ad fisheries managers.