Current Students
Bella Ritchie
Bella is a PhD student in Dr. Mya Breitbart’s lab studying ciliates. Before joining the lab, Bella spent a field season working for the North Dakota State University Pollinator Survey, and at Vanderbilt University for two years as a research assistant in Dr. Seth Bordenstein’s lab. While her background has mostly involved terrestrial arthropod research, Bella is now working on viral discovery in seagrasses and aquatic plants.
Contact Bella: iritchie@usf.edu
Alicia Hoeglund
Ever go to the beach and experience respiratory irritation and/or see dead marine life? If so, you’ve likely interacted with my study organism, Karenia brevis, aka Florida Red Tide. I have spent the last 6 years studying this species and closely related species of the same genus while working at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWC-FWRI) right next door to CMS. My work has focused primarily on new technologies that are being developed to detect and quantify K. brevis, including field-based genetic detection and field-based microscopic detection. For my graduate work I am hoping to continue these studies while also diving deeper into genetic techniques while working with Dr. Mya Breitbart and Dr. Kate Hubbard (FWRI).
Contact Alicia: ahoeglund@usf.edu
Alexis Mitchem
Alexis is a third-year PhD student in Dr. Mya Breitbart’s lab. Her research involves applying molecular tools, such as DNA barcoding, to fish eggs collected seasonally from the West Florida Shelf to identify crucial areas that are being utilized by economically important fish species. She intends to further identify how physical parameters such as surface currents affect the distribution and transport range of these fish eggs and to what extent.
Her current project focuses on identifying sites on the West Florida Shelf that are spawning hotspots for yellowedge grouper (Hyporthodus flavolimbatus), a deep-water species that is of commercial and recreational importance but is largely data deficient compared to shallow-water groupers.
Contact Alexis: mitchema@usf.edu
AJ Gross
AJ Gross is a first-year master’s student in Drs. Mya Breitbart and Steve Murawski’s lab. His research involves studying emerging chemical contaminants, bacteria, and viruses in Eastern Oysters (Crassostrea virginica) in Tampa Bay, Florida, as a member of the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project. His work utilizes gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to characterize over 90 PCBs, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, UV-filters, phthalates (plasticizers), and flame retardants, as well as molecular biology techniques to detect the presence of pathogenic bacteria and viruses or viral indicators of wastewater pollution in oyster tissues. Previous work while at USF has included researching seagrass viruses, developing methodology to detect the presence of the pepper virus PMMoV, and characterizing emerging chemical contaminants in wastewater effluent.
Contact AJ: ajgross@usf.edu
Nina Rodriguez Perez
Nina is a first-year Ph.D. student. She recently graduated with her B.S. in Marine Biology at USF. Her current projects involve the use of DNA barcoding to assess the relationship between fish spawning patterns and varying depths within the West Florida Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. She is also working on further describing the newly discovered potential interactions between viruses and seagrass in Tampa Bay. Before joining the lab, Nina’s previous research experiences involved comb jelly genomics, wastewater microbiology, and bacteriophage bioinformatics.
Contact Nina: ariannar2@usf.edu