HRI GRADUATES

from HRI Annual Impact Review 2022

by Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies

Visiting Researcher

CORAL LOZADA, PH.D.

Coral received her M.S. in Fisheries and Mariculture in May 2016 at TAMU-CC and participated in the Master’s International Program (MI). The MI Program gave her the unique opportunity to work for 27 months as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mexico. For 24 of those months, she worked with the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas — the Mexican equivalent for the National Parks Service—at a Marine Protected Area and Natural Protected Area called Parque Islas Marietas. Coral is now a post-doctoral research associate at HRI working in the Community Resilience group. Her doctoral project focused on understanding the livelihood transitions of communities across the Gulf of Mexico. Coral’s research interests include co-productive methods for tackling coastal and marine resource problems, intersectional environmentalism, and environmental justice issues across the Gulf of Mexico.

KELSEY MARTIN, PH.D.

After graduating magna cum laude with a B.S. in Marine Science from Coastal Carolina University, Kelsey spent seven months working with sharks as a volunteer at the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation in Bimini, Bahamas. She then worked on commercial fishing vessels in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea as a fisheries observer for Alaskan Observers Inc.. Then in 2015, she went back to school and obtained her M.S. in Coastal Marine and Wetland Studies from Coastal Carolina University in December 2017. She graduated from TAMU-CC with a Ph.D. in Marine Biology for her dissertation entitled “The Role of Artificial Reefs and Natural Banks in the Distribution and Abundance of Economically Important Fishes”

KATE SHLEPR, PH.D.

Kate graduated from the Integrative Biology-Environmental Science program at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida), while working as the lab coordinator for HRI Endowed Chair for Conservation and Biodiversity, Dr. Dale Gawlik. She earned a BA in Human Ecology at College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, Maine) and a MSc in Biology at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, New Brunswick). For her dissertation, Kate investigated the recovery of a federally protected species of wading bird, the Wood Stork (Mycteria americana), in the context of a major ecosystem restoration project, the Florida Everglades. Kate received a prestigious Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship from NOAA National Sea Grant College Program in 2022 and worked alongside federal agencies in Washington, D.C. for a year.

SARAH TOMINACK, PH.D.

Sarah earned her M.S. from The University of West Florida where she studied the distribution of Archaea in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico as part of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative funded Deep-C research consortium. Sarah received her B.A. in Environmental Biology from the University of North Alabama, with a double minor in Chemistry and Spanish. Her dissertation research focused on the harmful red tide-causing organism, Karenia brevis, and the environmental conditions that support red tide formation and duration.