Staff
Ashley Carreiro
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Ashley joined the lab in January 2020 as a technician, and in January of 2021 became a Master's student. After completing her M.S. at FAU Harbor Branch in December 2023, Ashley has become our lead lab manager. She received a B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Marine Biology from Florida State University. As a tech, Ashley has assisted with samples from the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas to better characterize population connectivity throughout the Florida Reef Tract and Gulf of Mexico and also analyzed 3D models to better assess the impacts of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) on corals in Southeast Florida. As a graduate student, Ashley explored the relationship between nutrients and SCTLD. Prior to joining the lab, she worked as the science coordinator at Marine Conservation Philippines where she led the long-term monitoring project of coral reefs used to assist in MPA management decisions in Negros Oriental. She also did an extensive amount of technical diving in the Philippines assessing the feasibility of monitoring mesophotic reefs.
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Malachy McCaffrey
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Malachy is a Coral Research Technician whose current focus is assisting boating and diving operations, and molecular laboratory work that supports ongoing projects in the lab. Malachy received a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of Rhode Island in 2020, during which time he gained scientific diving experience as a Coastal and Environmental Research Fellow working with Dr. Graham Forrester. Using DNA barcoding and phylogenetic comparative methods, he clarified host-parasite interactions between cryptic species of reef goby and parasitic copepods. Malachy then learned diver-based reef monitoring practices in Bonaire and gained insight into how the National Parks Bonaire Foundation (STINAPA Bonaire) carries out coral reef conservation efforts. Following graduation, he worked for Saltwater Inc. as a fisheries observer in Alaska supporting the NOAA Fisheries North Pacific Observer Program. Prior to joining the Voss Lab, Malachy managed the System-Wide Monitoring Program for the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Reserve in Port Aransas, Texas.
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Graduate Students
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Ryan is a Ph.D. Student who completed his Master's in the lab in July 2019. Ryan’s thesis research focused on the coral species Montastraea cavernosa at several sites within two marine reserves on the Belize Barrier Reef. He used microsatellite markers and next-generation sequencing to examine how M. cavernosa populations and their assemblages of endosymbiotic algae (family Symbiodiniaceae) varied across a gradient from shallow to mesophotic depths. His doctoral research will expand the scale and scope of investigations into reef connectivity, including multiple coral and sponge species in Florida and the NW Gulf of Mexico. Ryan has been named a FAU Presidential Fellow and received a PADI grant to support his research. He earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Florida State University and worked as a researcher at NOAA’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary prior to joining the Voss Lab. While at FGBNMS he coordinated offshore field logistics for scientific diving missions and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) expeditions. He also ran quarterly long-term monitoring water quality sampling cruises and maintained long-term water quality sampling instrumentation.
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Alexis joined the lab as a Ph.D. student in August 2017 and graduated in December 2022. Her dissertation research focused on the characterization of mesophotic and shallow coral reef communities across the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean. Her research, supported through NOAA and NSF funded projects, combined several molecular techniques to improve the understanding of the ecology, genetic connectivity, and associated symbiont assemblages of populations of the coral Montastraea cavernosa. In addition to her research, Lexie served as the president of the Harbor Branch Student Association, as the Harbor Branch campus coordinator, and as one of the founding members of the Harbor Branch Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. During her time at Harbor Branch, Lexie was awarded fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Florida Sea Grant, and the Women Divers Hall of Fame to support her graduate research and was awarded two postdoctoral science policy fellowships, a NASEM Gulf Research Science Policy Fellowship and a NOAA Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship. She ultimately pursued the Knauss Fellowship and is now working with NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program on the steering committee for the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. She is a graduate of the University of Miami with dual degrees in Marine Science and Biology. Prior to her graduate work at HBOI, she worked in education and outreach and policy development for the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and Office of Protected Resources. As an undergraduate NOAA Hollings Scholar, she led coral health impact and human use surveys in Tumon Bay, Guam. She also worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Cnidarian Immunity Lab, focusing on wound healing processes in the coral, Pocillopora damicornis.
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Allie Klein is a Ph.D. Student who recently completed her Master’s in the lab in 2022. Her Master’s Thesis focused on the coral species Orbicella faveolata and its variable susceptibility to stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD). She used 2bRAD genotyping to determine if intraspecific disease susceptibility had an underlying genetic link. Allie’s doctoral research will pivot to another coral reef stressor, thermal tolerance. In partnership with University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), Allie with will be working with the ToBo Lab and the Reef Resilience Lab to identify thermally resilient coral candidates best suited for large scale outplanting. Allie has received a Women’s Diver Hall of Fame Technical Dive Training Grant to advance her diving certification allowing her to become a key member of our lab’s mesophotic technical diving team. Prior to joining the Voss Lab, she received a B.S. in Marine Biology and a B.A. in Environmental Chemistry with a minor in Sustainability from Roger Williams University. Throughout her four years at RWU, Allie was an outstanding research student in Dr. Koty Sharp's Lab and an INBRE-SURF fellow in both 2018 and 2019. Her senior thesis research focused on characterizing and assessing dynamics in the microbiome of the northern star coral, Astrangia poculata.
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Gabby Pantoni joined the lab as a Coral Research Technician in March 2021, and in January 2022 became a Master's student. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in May 2020 with a BS in Marine Biology. In 2019 she was a RI C-AIM Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow working with Dr Carol Thornber and Dr. Lindsay Green-Gavrielidis to study benthic community ecology. Her research observed changes in benthic habitats related to abundance of kelps and rockweeds throughout Narragansett Bay. She conducted benthic video surveys on scuba to observe kelp and rockweed habitats, and used historical data comparisons to determine changes in abundance of these habitat forming seaweeds. In 2018, she studied abroad for a semester at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), where she began research diving and conducting coral reef research. As a tech, Gabby has helped with the coral outplanting and restoration project and aids in research diving for the lab. She will continue to work on the outplanting and restoration project as a graduate student by looking at survivorship and growth over time of the outplanted colonies as part of her thesis research.
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Milena Nesic
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Milena joined the Voss Lab in June 2023 as a Coral Research Technician prior to beginning her Marine Science & Oceanography Master’s program in the Fall. She obtained her B.S. in Biology from the University of South Florida in 2022. During her undergrad, Milena’s honors thesis explored whether the presence of local wildlife influenced potential differences among soil bacterial communities. Following her graduation from USF, she embarked on a Dual Program internship at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration, during which time she participated in both Coral Restoration and the Coral Health & Disease programs. Under the tutelage of her mentors, one of whom included the OG Voss Lab alumna Dr. Courtney Klepac, Milena gained experience in coral reproduction and husbandry as well as foundational molecular biology techniques involved in coral DNA extraction. She plans to do a deep dive into coral ecophysiology and will resurface shortly with pertinent research questions.
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Undergraduate Students
Eden Lewerke
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Eden is an undergraduate student who joined the lab in January 2023 as an intern. She is pursuing her B.S. in Biology at Florida Atlantic University with an emphasis on marine studies. She has also obtained degree certificates in environmental science, Geographic Information Systems, and Honors undergraduate research. She was selected to participate in the Semester by the Sea program at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. During her time at SBTS, she worked on several research projects involving profiling invertebrate diversity and abundance within the Indian River Lagoon and Red Tide’s influence on shallow reef ecosystems. As a recipient of the Link Foundation Fellowship 2023 Summer Intern Program, she worked with Dr. Joshua Voss to investigate the impacts of salinity stress on the wound healing rates in the coral Montastraea cavernosa. With the help of Haley Davis, she fragmented and monitored artificially wounded M. cavernosa colonies using orthographic image analysis to assess tissue recovery rates. Eden also serves as a specialist in the Florida Army National Guard as a diesel mechanic, having graduated from the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in 2021 as Distinguished Honor Graduate.
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