2022
Alayna Hicks
Alayna was a Link Fellowship recipient, and came to us from the University of Arizona. Her summer project examined interactions between various shell-crushing predators and mollusks using fragment analysis.
Alayna is finishing her senior year at University of Arizona, and is currently undecided on what she’ll do after graduation..
2021
Kayla McCulloch
Kayla was a Link Fellowship recipient, and came to us from the University of Miami. Her summer project examined interactions between whitespotted eagle rays and various types of antipredator gear used in clam aquaculture.
Kayla is finishing her senior year at University of Miami, and has aspirations to move on to graduate studies.
2019
Brianna Cahill
Brianna was a Link Fellowship recipient, and came to us from Stony Brook University. Her intern project was Assessing Residency of Tagged Mesopredators around Clam Leases in the Indian River Lagoon.
Brianna is now a graduate student with the FEC lab here at Harbor Branch FAU.
Erin Mullen
Erin was a Link Fellowship recipient and came to the program through the United States Coast Guard Academy. Erin’s project was Comparing Detection Performance between Internal and External Acoustic Transmitters. Her project was under the guidance of Dr Matt Ajemian, and Dr Lauran Brewster.
Erin is continuing her education with the United States Coast Guard Academy.
Mason Thurman
Mason was a Link Fellowship recipient under the mentors Dr. Paul Wills, Dr. Matt Ajemian, and Steve Lombardo. Mason came to us from Florida Institute of Technology, and his project was Determining Juvenile Bonefish Benthic Habitat Preference Using Mesocosms.
2018
Catherine Lamboy
Catherine’s project was Assessment of Mollusk Predation Through the Use of Bioacoustics.
2017
Alex Allen
Alex came to us from Florida Gulf Coast University (expected graduation May 2018).
Alex worked on all projects of the Fisheries Ecology and Conservation Lab, but was principally in charge of Red Drum husbandry and captive observations of external tag impacts on fish behavior.
Rachel Shaw
Rachel came to us as a visiting master's student (Interdisciplinary Studies) from the University of Central Florida.
Rachel worked on several items over the summer, including GIS-based delineation of nearshore habitat along the treasure coast, as well as developing aerial survey techniques with Indian River By Air. She then moved on to obtain a master’s degree with the FEC lab and graduated in 2020. Rachel is now a high school science teacher in central Florida.
2016
Sam Dowiarz
Samantha was a Link Fellowship recipient from the University of Miami in summer 2016.
As part of her summer project, Sam analyzed long-term fishery-independent data from the Gulf of Mexico Shark Pupping and Nursery (GULFSPAN) program.
Sam graduated with a master’s degree in Biology from East Carolina University, and is currently a research specialist at Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Sara Barrett
Sara Barrett worked with us in summer 2016 as a Fisheries Ecology intern. Sara studied at the University of Tampa, where she graduated in May 2017.
Sara moved on to a master’s program at University of Southern Mississippi, working under the supervision of Dr. Jake Schaefer. She graduated there in 2020, and is currently a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Manuela Sales
Manuela came to us from the prestigious "Science Without Borders" Program, hailing from the State University of Ceara (BR).
Manuela helped us with analyzing field mating footage of wild Spotted Eagle Rays.