This semester the Voss Lab is excited to welcome three new students! 

Alycia Shatters, an FAU Master's student and graduate of the New College of Florida, will be focusing on the St. Lucie Reef project. Alycia will construct saltwater mesocosms and conduct ex situ experiments on corals from the reef. 

Current Semester by the Sea students Ali Courtemanche and Samantha Johnston are both completing directed independent studies in the lab.  Ali will focus on molecular techniques to characterize coral's phenotypic responses to depth variation while Samantha will be working on coral conservation strategies and methods to measure coral health.

Masters student Courtney Klepac recently returned from a trip where she collaborated with the Matz lab at University of Texas. While in Austin Courtney worked with Carly Kenkel, a Ph.D. student in the Matz Lab. They spent over a week processing 167 zooxanthellae DNA samples in preparation for amplicon sequencing using the Illumina MiSeq platform, which will allow fine-scale diversity of the St. Lucie Reef samples and any patterns observed to be correlated to host species and seasonal variations. 

Courtney also attended the annual SICB (Society of Integrative Biology) meeting held in Austin, Texas, from January 3-7. There she had the opportunity to attend a variety of symposia covering diverse topics from phenotypic plasticity to environmental toxicity as well as meet fellow graduate students and scientists. Hopefully next year Courtney will be able to present her research!