People

Andy is Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at UH Mānoa. His work focuses on developing computational tools to support Indigenous Data Sovereignty and the ethical study of biodiversity. He is fascinated by the ways different knowledge systems conceive of nature and biodiversity, as well as how large-scale patterns seem to consistently emerge across disparate scales of life from SNP frequencies to microbial communities to adaptive radiations of arthropods in Hawaiʻi. Andy is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in science. Please see more on that in our lab’s research, teaching, and philosophy.

Beth is a masters student in Ecology and Environmental Sciences through the School of Biology and Ecology at the University of Maine. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Biology at Oregon State University with a focus in Marine Biology, and studied adaptive and evolutionary genomics, community ecology, and thermal stress responses in regards to intertidal invertebrate and algal species. At the University of Maine, Beth is focused on working with eDNA as an aquatic monitoring tool and joining efforts to understand the continuing impacts of dams on Maine fisheries and river ecology. Beth is committed to equity and improving communication between scientists and non-scientists, and hopes to work with local and indigenous communities in Maine. Other projects she is interested include biological impacts of microplastics, subtidal ecology, and improving data accessibility and metadata records in STEM fields.

I am researching eDNA of marine invertebrates within the Gulf of Maine to devise plans to mitigate overfishing within Maine’s commercial fisheries and to relay the health of the coastal ecosystem of Maine; while also establishing establishing detection rates to ascertain species-specific correlations between fish biomass and eDNA read output. I was also previously employed by NOAA as an environmental scientist and groundfish observer to collect population and genetic data on sea mammals, sea birds, and invertebrates.

Heather is a PhD student in the EcoEvoMatics Lab. She has worked all over the country as a naturalist and educator, but is never more at home than when on Maine’s rocky coastline. She got her MS at San Francisco State University working with biofilms on microplastics as a student in the lab of Dr. Ed Carpenter. More recently, she has coordinated environmental monitoring research at an environmental research non-profit organization in Blue Hill, ME. She brings with her a passion for understanding coastal processes and a strong desire to sustain natural resources and increase climate change resiliency in the state of Maine.