Marine Biology Program in the College of Science

Faculty in the Marine Biology Program
Advisors for the College

Marine Biology Program

David Portnoy, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator

Office: TH 138
Phone: (361) 825-2859
Email: david.portnoy@tamucc.edu
Website: https://marinegenomicslab.tamucc.edu

Conservation genetics of exploited marine fishes, historical patterns of zoogeography, systematics and evolution of bony fishes and elasmobranchs, patterns of sexual selection, conflict and speciation.

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Faculty in the Marine Biology Program

Keisha Bahr, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology

Office: TH 134
Phone: (361) 825-3707
Email: keisha.bahr@tamucc.edu
Website: https://www.bahrlab.com

Coral Reef Ecology, Eco-physiology; Climate Change Ecology; Ocean acidification and Carbonate Chemistry; Reef diversity, distribution, and community level structure and processes; Science Communication.

Loretta Battaglia, Ph.D.

Professor & Director of Center for Coastal Studies

Email: loretta.battaglia@tamucc.edu

Coastal ecosystems; invasive species; wetland plant communities; multivariate statistics

Chris Bird, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biology

Office: TH 234
Phone: (361) 825-6024
Email: chris.bird@tamucc.edu
Website: https://birdlab.tamucc.edu

Molecular Ecology, Evolution, Population Genetics, Marine Biology, Community Ecology, Fisheries Management, Invertebrate Zoology, Biotechnology

Kirk Cammarata, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biology

Office: TH 338
Phone: (361) 825-2468
Email: kirk.cammarata@tamucc.edu
Website: https://faculty.tamucc.edu/cammarat

Physiology/biochemistry/molecular biology of seagrass stress responses to anthropogenic impacts; epiphyte dynamics and interactions with seagrasses

Daniel Coffey, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology-Fisheries & Mariculture

Office: TH 232
Phone: (361) 825-5883
Email: daniel.coffey@tamucc.edu

Donna Devlin, Ph.D.

Research Associate

Office: CS 106
Phone: (361) 825-3935
Email: donna.devlin@tamucc.edu

Chris Hollenbeck, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Fisheries and Mariculture

Office: TH 140
Phone: (361) 825-6022
Email: christopher.hollenbeck@tamucc.edu

Xinping Hu, Ph.D.

Professor of Chemistry and Endowed Chair for Ecosystem Science and Modeling

Office: HRI 209
Phone: (361) 825-3395
Email: xinping.hu@tamucc.edu
Website: http://hulab.tamucc.edu

Oceanic carbon cycle; Ocean acidification; Sediment early diagenesis; Carbonate geochemistry; Stable isotope biogeochemistry

Patrick Larkin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Office: CS 203
Phone: (361) 825-3258
Email: patrick.larkin@tamucc.edu

Plant biochemistry and genetics; fate and metabolism of nutrients and toxins, diversity and dispersal, conservation.

Yajuan Lin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Marine Ecology

Office: TH 231
Phone: (361) 825-3657
Email: yajuan.lin@tamucc.edu
Website: https://yajuanlin.github.io/

Biological Oceanography, Microbial Ecology, Marine Biogeochemistry, Climate Change

Candice Lumibao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology

Office: TH 333
Phone: (361) 825-3477
Email: candice.lumibao@tamucc.edu
Website: https://candicelumibaolab.com/

Plant-microbe interactions in coastal marshes, rhizosphere and endosphere microbial ecology, genomics, plant phenotypic and genetic trait variations, effects of climatic and anthropogenic changes, ancient plant DNA

Shawn McCracken, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology

Office: TH 142
Phone: (361) 825-3303
Email: shawn.mccracken@tamucc.edu
Website: https://www.mccrackenlab.com

Dr. McCrackens interests lie in the ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental change at community to ecosystem scales, directed at the development of management strategies and policy to preserve landscape wildlife biodiversity.

Paul Montagna, Ph.D.

HRI Chair and Professor

Office: HRI 122E
Phone: (361) 825-2040
Email: paul.montagna@tamucc.edu

Coastal ecology with emphasis on watersheds & estuaries; ecosystems with emphasis on water quality & benthos; modeling, statistics, & experimental design; ecoinformatics

Riccardo Mozzachiodi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Office: TH 335
Phone: (361) 825-3634
Email: riccardo.mozzachiodi@tamucc.edu

Neurobiology; biological basis of learning and memory; behavior

Dara Orbach, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology

Office: TH 340
Phone: (361) 825-3217
Email: dara.orbach@tamucc.edu
Website: https://daraorbach.weebly.com

Jennifer Pollack, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Marine Biology and HRI Chair for Coastal Conservation & Restoration

Office: HRI 210A
Phone: (361) 825-2041
Email: jennifer.pollack@tamucc.edu
Website: https://www.harte.org/research/coastal-conservation-restoration

Field research experience in temperate salt marsh creeks, semi-arid estuaries, and polar regions

Ed Proffitt, Ph.D.

Professor

Office: TH 139
Phone: (361) 825-2358
Email: ed.proffitt@tamucc.edu
Website: https://edproffitt.wixsite.com/coastal-ecology

Ecology of estuarine and marine plants and invertebrates; ecological genetics; experimental design and biometry; applying multivariate statistics to address large-scale problems

Frauke Seemann, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Marine Biomedical Science

Office: TH 332
Phone: (361) 825-2683
Email: frauke.seemann@tamucc.edu

Jian Sheng, Ph.D.

Professor of Engineering

Office: RFEB 313
Phone: (361) 825-3731
Email: jian.sheng@tamucc.edu

Greg Stunz, Ph.D.

Professor of Marine Biology and Endowed Chair for Fisheries and Ocean Health

Office: HRI 311C
Phone: (361) 825-3254
Email: greg.stunz@tamucc.edu

Marine biology, marine ecology, marine fisheries ecology, fisheries, estuarine ecology, environmental biology

Jeffrey Turner, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Marine Biology

Office: TH 240
Phone: (361) 825-6206
Email: jeffrey.turner@tamucc.edu
Website: https://turnerlab.tamucc.edu

Microbial Ecology, Molecular Biology, Population Genetics, Evolution, Genomics, Metagenomics, connections between oceans and human health

Benjamin Walther, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Office: TH 336
Phone: (361) 825-4168
Email: benjamin.walther@tamucc.edu
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/waltherfishlab/

Fish migration ecology; population connectivity; habitat use; food web dynamics; carbonate chemistry

Michael Wetz, Ph.D.

Professor of Marine Biology

Office: HRI 210B
Phone: (361) 825-2132
Email: michael.wetz@tamucc.edu
Website: https://www.harte.org/research/coastal-ecosystem-processes

Phytoplankton ecology, estuarine and coastal food webs and biogeochemical cycles, effects of climatic and anthropogenic change

Kim Withers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Office: NRC 3205
Phone: (361) 825-5907
Email: kim.withers@tamucc.edu

Tidal flat ecology; invertebrates & nekton of tidal flats & marshes; shorebird habitat use on tidal flats in Laguna Madre & Corpus Christi Bay; mangrove-associated faunas; seagrass ecology & invertebrate communities; impacts of succession on juvenile fish communities; fisheries resources in Texas & Mexico

Wei Xu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Marine Biomedical Science

Office: TH 339
Phone: (361) 825-2676
Email: wei.xu@tamucc.edu
Website: https://www.tamucc.edu/science/research/leh/wei-xu.php

Lin Zhang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Marine Chemistry

Office: HRI 104
Phone: (361) 825-2095
Email: lin.zhang@tamucc.edu
Website: http://zhanglab.tamucc.edu

Compound/Position Specific Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopic Analysis in Amino Acids and Application in Oceanography and Ecology. Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry of Greenhouse Gases in Alaskan Peatlands.

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Marine Biology Program Directory