Mystic Aquarium

Please join us for the 2013  Ridgway Research Seminar Series

All talks will take place in the Kitching’s Classroom from 12:15 to 1:00PM unless otherwise noted 

May 30, 2013

Lauren Stefaniak.    Didemnum vexillum: Identity, Origin, and Life History of an Invasive Ascidian 

Lauren Stefaniak was awarded an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute fellowship in 2009 to spend the summer doing research in Japan.  Lauren finished her Ph.D. in oceanography in 2012 and is now a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Peter Auster.  Her postdoctoral research project is part of a multi-institution collaboration to create integrated ecological habitat maps of Long Island Sound.

June 4, 2013

Michael Tlusty, Ph.D.   Integrating ornamental fish into social-ecological systems

Michael has been at the New England Aquarium for nearly 14 years, where he is the Director of Research for the Aquarium and serves as the senior aquaculture scientist for the Sustainable Seafood Programs. His three main areas of focus include sustainable seafood, ornamental fish, and nutrition and health of American lobsters. Much of his work on sustainable seafood includes helping groups (Global Aquaculture Alliance, World Wildlife Foundation, Aquaculture Stewardship Council) to develop standards that help assure aquaculture can meet the need for safe environmentally friendly seafood. Many of these lessons can be translated directly to ornamental fish, and his second area of interest. While certification is not yet a reality in ornamental fish, Michael is working to better understand the ornamental fish trade dynamics, to understand the role that public aquariums can have in supporting the trade to ultimately help it be a maximum beneficial force within a larger social-ecological context. Finally, Michael has been working to understand the interplay of the host-environment-pathogen framework in marine systems to better understand the causative factors leading to shell disease in American lobsters. Before working at the Aquarium, he was modeling environmental effects of salmon aquaculture in Newfoundland, Canada. He has a Ph.D. in biology from Syracuse University, and a Bachelor of Science in animal science from the University of Illinois.