People

Peter Alagona

Professor

Bren Hall 4013
Environmental History, Historical Ecology, Marine Resources and Conservation

Justine Albers

Graduate Student

Marine Biotech 2018
genomics & engineering non-model microbes to study biogeochemistry in extreme environments

Carolina Alejandra Martinez Gutierrez

Assistant Professor

2120 Webb Hall
Early Origins and Evolution of Microbial Life, Interaction Between Microbial Life and its Environment across Earth’s History, Evolution of Marine Bacteria and Archaea, Bioinformatics, Phylogenomics

Alice Alldredge

Research Professor

209 Building 408
Biological oceanography; ecology of marine gelatinous plankton; marine particulate matter and marine snow, biogeochemical cycling.
marine ecology, conservation, disturbance ecology, kelp forests, primary producers

Ricky Brokaw

Graduate Student

5835 Ellison Hall
Investigating water mass sources and transport of materials to kelp forests

Mark Brzezinski

Professor

3149 MBL
The power of plankton.

Deron Burkepile

Professor

4312 MSRB
Marine ecology, community ecology, trophic interactions, coral reefs.

Alison Butler

Distinguished Professor

3670D PSBN
Marine Bioinorganic Chemistry and Metallobiochemistry.

Luke Carberry

Graduate Student

Ellison 5838
Phytoplankton biophysics across time and space scales

Craig Carlson

Professor

3147 MBL
I am a microbial oceanographer that studies the interaction between microbes and the biogeochemical processing of marine organic matter.

Leila Carvalho

Professor

6808 Ellison Hall
Main research interests: tropical climates, monsoon systems, mountain meteorology, fire weather regimes, and extremes.

Jenn Caselle

Research Biologist

4314 MSRB
Marine ecology and conservation, community ecology, trophic interactions, coral reefs and kelp forests.

Peter Collins

Professor

214 Building 408
Mechanisms regulating reproduction and development in vertebrate animal models.

Christopher Costello

Professor

4410 Bren Hall
Chris’ research addresses natural resource and environmental management under uncertainty and incomplete property rights.

Julia Cox

PhD Student

MSRB 1314

I graduated with a BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019, where I conducted research on the relationship bet

Sofia Urgoiti Crespo (she/her)

Master's Student

MSRB 4013
Marine community ecology & spatial ecology; role of reef rugosity and substrate complexity and the dynamics between kelp/sea urchin in the Santa Barbara Channel using long term ecological data

Anthony DeTomaso

Professor

1107 Life Sciences
Molecular mechanisms of self/non-self recognition in non-vertebrates; characterization of stem cells and development processes underlying regeneration and aging.

Tim DeVries

Professor

6804 Ellison Hall
The DeVries lab studies the interaction of ocean circulation, carbon cycle, and climate.

Qinghua Ding

Associate Professor

6806 Ellison Hall
Research Interests include Tropical-extratropical Teleconnection, Large-scale Atmosphere/Ocean Interaction, Polar Climate Variability, Paleoclimate Climate Change, Seasonal Prediction and Coupled Climate Modeling.

Natalie Dornan

Graduate Student

Marine Biotechnology Laboratory 2018
kelp forest nutrient cycling

Jenny Dugan

Research Biologist

2403 MSRB
Coastal Marine Ecologist.

Nathalie Eegholm

Graduate Student

Ellison 5843
Using remote sensing technology to aid in the development of net primary productivity and demographic models of kelp forests

Zach Eilon

Assistant Professor

2116 Webb
Marine Geophysics, Seismology, Tectonophysics, Inverse Theory.

Erika Eliason

Associate Professor

2306 MSRB
Ecological and evolutionary physiology, Fish biology, global change biology, comparative physiology.

Chance English

Graduate Student

145 MBL
Graduate student researcher investigating DOM/bacterioplankton dynamics in the open and coastal ocean.

Kathleen Foltz

Professor

3156 MBL
Gamete recognition and fertilization in marine invertebrates.

Halley Froehlich

Assistant Professor

4007 Bren Hall
The Froehlich Lab studies the sustainability of seafood and marine ecosystems under climate change.

Steve Gaines

Professor and Dean, Bren School

2410 Bren Hall
Marine ecology, sustainable fisheries, aquaculture, oceans and climate change.

Claire Gonzales

Graduate Student

BIO II, Room 1129
Co-location of multiple ocean activities (i.e., aquaculture, renewable energy and wild capture fisheries) in California's marine spaces

Hayley Goss

Graduate Student

Seascape genetics, larval dispersal, population connectivity and genetic structure in the Santa Barbara Channel

Ben Halpern

Professor
Director, NCEAS

4420 Bren Hall / 312 NCEAS
Marine ecology, conservation science, aquaculture and fisheries, food system sustainability, indicator science.

Sally Holbrook

Distinguished Professor

3316 MSRB
Marine ecology, community ecology, species interactions.

Patricia Holden

Professor

3508 Bren Hall
Environmental microbiology, water quality, pollutants, soils, urban and protected areas.

Emily Huffman

Graduate Student

Webb 1049
Coastal Geology and Geophysics, Sea-Level Changes and Glacial History
Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez has worked for twenty years on diversity and function in marine phytoplankton combining molecular approaches, carbon physiology and biogeochemistry in the lab and in the field.

Matt Jackson

Professor

2012 Webb
Geochemistry and Igneous Petrology.

Charles Jones

Professor

6810 Ellison Hall
Climate variability and change, monsoons, extreme events, predictability, wildfires and regional modeling.

Andrea Jorgensen

Management Services Officer

4306 Life Sciences Building

Oversees the departmental operation and is responsible for it running smoothly.

Marianna Karagiannis

Graduate Student

Carbon export and biogeochemical cycling

Bruce Kendall

Professor

4514 Bren Hall
Bruce is an ecological theoretician and modeler who applies population ecology to problems in conservation and fisheries management.

James Kennett

Professor Emeritus

2026 Webb
Earth System History recorded in sediments with emphasis in Marine Geology, Paleoceanography, Climate Change and Cosmic Impacts

Armand Kuris

Professor

2002 MBL
The mission of our research group is to reveal the role of infectious diseases in ecosystems. We investigate parasite ecology, disease ecology, food web dynamics, ecology and evolution of infectious strategies, and control of human parasites.

Kevin Lafferty

Adjunct Faculty
US Geological Survey

2308 MSRB
USGS ecologist studying food webs (and parasites) in kelp forests, estuaries, coral reefs and beaches.

Hunter Lenihan

Professor

3428 Bren Hall
Professor of Applied Marine and Fisheries Ecology.

Zhe Li

Graduate Student

4710 Ellison Hall
Polar climate change, ocean heat content, ocean-atmosphere interaction.

Gen Li

Assistant Professor

Webb 1120
Geochemistry, Geomorphology, the Carbon Cycle

Lorraine Lisiecki

Professor

2113 Webb
My research focuses on computational approaches to the interpretation of paleoclimate records.

Na Liu

Graduate Student

2029 Webb Hall
Interactions between microbes and the environment.

David Lopez-Carr

Professor

4836 Ellison Hall

Prof.

Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz

Assistant Professor

2328 Engineering II
Wind energy, conductivity sensing, drag reduction using superhydrophobic surfaces, cohesive sediment.

Sally MacIntyre

Professor

4308 MSRB
Limnology and Coastal Oceanography, with particular emphasis on physical-biological coupling.

Katrina Malakhoff

Graduate Student

1206 MSRB
Sea urchin ecology, focusing on the impact of fishing and marine reserves on dominant urchin species in the Santa Barbara Chanel.

I am broadly interested in coastal marine ecology. I previously worked with Dr.

Synthetic biology and genetic engineering to produce sustainable methods and alternatives to food, fuel, and materials.

Douglas McCauley

Associate Professor

2314 MSRB
Understanding the ecology of communities and ecosystems in a rapidly changing world.

Mary McElroy

Graduate Student

1208 MSRB
I develop molecular tools for marine conservation and management and use them to study human impacts on marine biodiversity.

Eckart Meiburg

Distinguished Professor

2351 Engineering II
Stratified and multiphase flows, sediment transport, computational fluid dynamics.

John Melack

Professor

4424 Bren Hall
Ecological processes in lakes, wetlands and streams and their catchments throughout the world.

Kristen Michaud

Graduate Student

1204 MSRB
Marine community ecology, invasion ecology, larval transport.

Robert Miller

Research Biologist

I am broadly interested in marine community ecology and benthic food webs. 

Deanna Mireles

Graduate Student

Bren 3308
Investigating the effect of triple compound extreme events on marine communities in the Santa Barbara Channel

Holly Moeller

Assistant Professor

1120 Noble Hall
Uses mathematics, experiments, and field observations to understand how metabolic interactions between species shape the structure and function of ecological communities.

Michael P. Montgomery

Graduate Student

Bren 4026
Historical Ecology, Biogeography, and Social Oceanography

Dan Morse

Research Professor and Distinguished Professor Emeritus

3155 MBL
Bio-inspired catalytic nanofabrication, tunable photonic materials and dynamic self-assembly. Applications to semiconductors, high-power batteries, electro-optics, IR and solar energy.

Dana Myers

Graduate Student

Ellison 5842
Coastal physical oceanography; remote sensing; estuary flux measurements

Norm Nelson

Researcher (Retired/Recall)

6817 Ellison Hall
I count photons and herd phytoplankton.

Kyle Neumann

Graduate Student

Nick Nidzieko

Associate Professor
Program Diversity Officer

4316 MSRB
Coastal physical oceanography and autonomous platforms.

Michael Nowicki

Graduate Student

5837 Ellison Hall
Carbon export and biological pump modeling.

Michelle O'Malley

Associate Professor

3343 Engineering II
Synthetic biology; cellular and biomolecular engineering; sustainability and bioremediation; membrane proteins; genetic regulation.

Carter Ohlmann

Researcher

6713 Ellison
Physical Oceanography

Uta Passow

Research Oceanographer

Building 408
My current research focuses on the Biological Carbon Pump (BCP) in the Anthropocene. Changes to our climate, oil spills or plastic pollution all impact the production and gravitational settling of carbon. The BCP additionally provides transport pathways for pollutants.

Nicola Paul

Graduate Student

Marine Biotechnology Laboratory 2018
particle-attached marine microbes

Susannah Porter

Professor

1037 Webb
Proterozoic and Cambrian paleontology; origins of biomineralization; early eukaryote evolution; early animal evolution.

Frankie Puerzer

Assistant Specialist

MSI Lab Room 2004

Frankie manages field work and lab operations for SCB MBON.

Simone Pulver

Associate Professor

4001 Bren Hall
Pulver's research focuses broadly on the intersection of economic action and environmental harm and seeks to integrate theoretical frameworks related to global governance, organizational theory, and economic and environmental sociology.

Qianhui Qin

Graduate Student

2029 Webb Hall
Carbon Climate, Marine Organisms Genomics.

Morgan Raven

Assistant Professor

2024 Webb
Sulfur biogeochemistry and organic matter cycling in the ocean.

Billy Ray

Graduate Student

marine community ecology, benthic food webs and aquaculture.

Joel Rothman

Professor

3137 Bio II
Regulation of development and differentiation; regulation of programmed cell death and cell division; mechanisms of tumorigenesis.

Rachel Sandquist

Graduate Student

Alyson Santoro

Professor; Vice Chair and Graduate Advisor, IGPMS

2155 MBL
Marine microbial ecology, nitrogen cycling.

Jacob Schmidt

Graduate Student

2029 Webb Hall
Offshore dumping of DDT insecticide and related waste near the Channel Islands.

Russell Schmitt

Professor

3314 MSRB
Population and community ecology, marine ecology.

Kateline Seeto

Graduate Student

West Campus, Bldg 7955, Rm 1001
fish and invertebrate communities associated with offshore energy, comparing survey methodology for subsea pipelines

David Siegel

Professor

6844 Ellison Hall
Physical oceanographic / ecological coupling, biogeochemistry and coastal spatial ecology using the tools of an applied physicist, radiative transfer and fluid mechanics.

Alex Simms

Professor

2041 Webb Hall
Our lab investigates how coastlines evolve over thousands of years.

Bill Smith

Professor

2137 Bio II
Developmental genetics and morphogenesis of the primitive chordate Ciona.

Jordan Snyder

Graduate Student

Coastal oceanography; remote sensing-based flux measurements of terrestrial materials in the inner shelf.

Ruiming Song

Graduate Student

Ellison Hall 5835

Air-Sea Carbon flux

Michaela Sten

Graduate Student

Ellison Hall 5843
Population and community ecology

Samantha Stevenson

Assistant Professor

3412 Bren Hall
Climate and ocean modeling, tropical Pacific climate dynamics, and long-term variations in hydroclimate.

Adrian Stier

Associate Professor

2108 Noble Hall
Ocean Resilience: biodiversity, assembly, and sustainability of harvested ocean ecosystems.

Jonathan Tarn

Graduate Student

2029 Webb Hall
Jon loves looking at how microbes are adapted to low energy lifestyles and talking in the third person.

Andrew Thurber

Associate Professor

Noble Hall 2136
The Thurber Lab seeks to understand how the oceans work through a lens of combining biogeochemistry, microbiology and animal ecology. Much of the lab's research focuses on deep-sea and/or polar habitats, environments critical to a functioning planet and often overlooked for their importance. The lab aims to understand how these habitats function, how society benefits from them, and how this will change with our changing climate.

Thomas Turner

Associate Professor

LSB 4307
Ecology and evolution of marine sponges

Cecily Tye

Graduate Student

5838 Ellison
physical oceanography

David Valentine

Professor
Chair, IGPMS

2017 Webb
Carbon Climate, Marine Organisms Genomics.

Jose Valera

Graduate Student

Marine Organisms, Extremophiles, Nutrient cycling, Astrobiology, Carbon & Climate.

Rosa Vasquez

Academic Personnel Analyst

LSB 4310

Rebecca Vega Thurber

Professor; Director of UCSB Marine Science Institute

Our lab studies the microbial and viral ecology of marine and terrestrial species. We use a variety of high tech approaches such as genomics and informatics to discover and understand how bacteria and viruses both positively and negatively interact with their hosts. Much of our work is focused on how these interactions are altered under anthropogenic stress and how they may lead to reduced host and ecosystem resilience. We also conduct work specifically on marine conservation, aiming to better evaluate the unseen biodiversity of marine systems and to identify innovative solutions to the global declines of key marine species.

Herbert Waite

Distinguished Professor

3154 MBL
Structure-properties relationships in loadbearing marine biomolecular materials, e.g. from mussels, squid and whelks, at different length and time scales to design new materials.

Ian Walker

Professor

Ellison 4834

Coastal geomorphology, aeolian (windblown) geomorphology, sediment transport processes, beach erosion, coastal dunes, beach-dune restorat

Robert Warner

Research Professor

4322A MSRB
Evolutionary ecology, population and conservation biology; ecology and behavior of reef fishes.

Libe Washburn

Professor

4306 MSRB
Libe Washburn is an oceanographer and professor at UCSB who studies the coastal ocean and related marine ecosystems.

Syee Weldeab

Professor

1113 Webb
Paleoclimate, paleoceanography, proxy development and refinement

Lizzy Wilbanks

Assistant Professor

2128 Noble Hall
I am interested how microbial interactions and tightly-coupled biogeochemical cycles drive the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of populations, with a current focus on the bacteria and archaea of marine aggregates and biofilms.

Kana Yamamoto

Graduate Student

Ellison 5837
open ocean carbon cycle, biological pump, carbon modeling

Mengshu Ye

Staff Graduate Advisor

4310 Life Sciences Building

Serves as Graduate Advisor for EEMB/IGPMS.