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Marine natural products & biodiscovery
Draft content pending. This section will distinguish established experience from future training goals in natural-products discovery.
Research
Research vision
How can underexplored marine organisms become sources of useful chemistry and biotechnology?
How can this process be made scalable?
At approximately 352 quintillion gallons and 3.8 billion years old, the ocean is the largest and longest-running chemistry experiment on Earth. That is quite the head start on us, and we should look to it for biochemical inspiration! The deep holds vast potential for new medicines, catalysts, materials, and more.
In hopes of discovering these novel biotechnologies, I am interested in exploring the biochemistry within extreme marine environments, such as brine pools and hydrothermal vents. These are the places where biology has forged some of its most unique solutions.
Today, we have still barely tapped into the ocean’s biochemical potential. I plan to be a part of changing that.
My early trajectory
During my undergraduate studies at Eckerd College, I earned degrees in Biochemistry and Marine Science (Biology) and gained hands-on experience in molecular biology, microbiology, cnidarian physiology, and marine fieldwork. Since then, I have expanded my practical experience through scuba diving and aquaculture, building skills in marine operations, organismal husbandry, and life-support systems that may support future biodiscovery work.
Incoming work · August 2026
Marine model systems at the Whitney Laboratory
Beginning in August 2026, I will work with Drs. Mark Martindale and Sandra Loesgen at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience. The project will investigate biomineralization pathways and help develop the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis as a platform for protein expression. The longer-term vision is to determine whether a genetically tractable anemone can reproduce aspects of coral-like biomineralization, informally, to “turn an anemone into a coral.” More broadly, I am interested in how marine organisms and their molecular machinery can become new research and biotechnology tools.
Working with Dr. Martindale will deepen my understanding of cnidarian development, evolution, and marine model systems. Dr. Loesgen’s expertise in natural products and organic chemistry will provide a complementary chemical perspective, creating a particularly strong environment for connecting organismal biology with marine biodiscovery.
Content workshop
Research page sections in development
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Deep-sea & extreme marine habitats
Draft content pending. This section will develop the scientific questions motivating work in brine pools, hydrothermal vents, and other extreme systems.
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Completed research experience
Draft content pending. Planned project summaries: retinal gene-therapy research, cnidarian biology and molecular workflows, and marine biodiversity monitoring.
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Technical toolbox
Draft content pending. Planned categories: molecular biology and microbiology, organismal culture, imaging and histology, data analysis, field operations, and course-level natural-products chemistry.
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Questions I hope to pursue
Draft content pending. This section will end the page with a small set of forward-looking research questions.