KelpRes: Our Team

The people behind KelpRes

Dr. Anne Marie Power is a Senior Lecturer in Zoology at the Martin Ryan Institute, NUI Galway, whose primary interests are settlement of marine propagules, sustainable fisheries, and the effect of global change on distribution of marine species. Anne Marie obtained her PhD (Zoology) from UCC in 2000 and was the primary postdoc on MarClim coastal monitoring efforts in the early 2000s before obtaining her position at NUI Galway. @BarnacleHunt

Dr. Kathryn Schoenrock is a postdoctoral researcher from the United States of America, working in the Department of Zoology, NUI Galway. She obtained her PhD (Biology) in 2014 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she investigated the the ecology and physiology of Antarctic Seaweeds, with an emphasis in chemical ecology and climate change effects. She has since worked extensively in southwestern Greenland trying to understand the diversity of kelp forest and coralline algae habitats, but her experience with climate change and the marine region drew her to the Lusitanian region of the North Atlantic where marine communities mirror projections for the Boreal region under present climate change regimes. She currently works on creating a baseline for marine monitoring in kelp forest communities found in western Ireland, and works closely with citizen science outlets, science festivals, and commercial organizations. @katesrock

KenanChan is a research assistant from San Mateo, CA. He studied organismal interactions with Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) in the Monterey Bay, habitat association and growth rates of Giant Fan Mussels (Pinna nobilis) in the Mediterranean and has participated in a number of different research projects such as benthic mapping and kelp population genetics in his positions at the University of California and the National Parks Service. 

Dr. Stacy Krueger-Hadifeld is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is an evolutionary ecologist who specializes in marine and freshwater systems and is one of the leading researchers in her field. She obtained her PhD in 2011 from both UPMC-Sorbonne Universités and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and then moved to multiple postdocs at the Marine Biological Association, UK, and Grice Marine laboratory, Charleston, USA. She contributes to multiple scientific societies as a journal editor, on the executive committees and is an effective science communicator through the blog The Molecular Ecologist (http://www.molecularecologist.com/). @quooddy

Dr. Aaron Golden is a full-time faculty member of the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics at NUI Galway with a strong background in data analytics applied to topics in astronomy, earth observation sciences, and genomics. He has experience with mapping algae populations in the coastal environment using the EU Copernicus satellite network through his role as PI of the recently funded INFER project (“Remote Sensing of Irish Surface Waters” 2017-W-MS-30). 

Rory and Tony O'Callaghan, Seasearch Ireland This father-son team have coordinate Seasearch efforts in the Republic of Ireland since 2003. Seasearch Irelands objective is to build capacity within the network of divers (CFT) to collect data on marine biology and enable a better understanding of our marine environment and its response to global marine change. The organization hosts species ID training events, does monthly monitoring at select locations, and recently has been incorporating more kelp forest work into their public forum with help from K. Schoenrock. @SeasearchIreland

National Biodiversity Data Centre, Dr. Liam Lysaght and Dave Walls The National Biodiversity Data Centre is an Initiative of the Heritage Council and is operated under a service level agreement by Compass Informatics. The data centre is funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and the Heritage Council. The NBDC and the Citizen Science Officer work on developing a survey around marine/coastal recording which intersects with the objectives of KelpRes. @BioDataCentre