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Dr. Celia M. Smith I've been fascinated by lakes and the ocean for as long as I can remember. As a youngster, my extended family spent vacations lakeside in Vermillion, Ohio. Long before its decade of infamy, Lake Erie was a great place to be part of the bucket brigade. That fun and those experiences started my early love of science. When I was 8, we moved to Boston. After a quiet lakeside beach, imagine the thrill of seeing the Atlantic. Here we had a vastness of Lake Erie with a real surf and an endless supply of things that wash up at your feet for you to look at! Through these summers in Cape Cod and Cape Ann, tide pooling and beachcombing, trips to the Museum of Science in Boston, and an unexpected entry into a NSF summer science program for high school students, I refined my science interests first to biology and then to marine biology. By the time I entered Mt Holyoke College, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to study. I was also lucky to know why I wanted to study marine biology. The NSF program extended into job offers for summer technician positions first at the University of Massachusetts' marine lab in Gloucester and next to the Bigelow Labs, Boothbay Harbor, Maine. These tech positions were really important; they taught me what it was like to be in a real research lab and how a scientist worked on solving problems day-by-day. By the time I entered college, I knew that I wanted to be a biologist, a researcher. After two years at Mt Holyoke, I took advantage of junior year programs and went to the University College of North Wales to study marine biology and botany for the year. My tutor at Menai Bridge suggested two places where I could "do" marine biology back in the US: UC Berkeley for life-history work with John West or University of Hawai'i for marine ecology with Max Doty. Within 18 months, I was a grad student with Dr. Doty in the Botany Department. For my MS thesis, I explored some of the then current ideas for plant evolution with tropical reef algae. With another broad stroke of luck, this reef algal work lead me to Dr. Isabella Abbott, a renowned algal taxonomist and visiting Professor from Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. Within 18 months, I was a grad student with Dr. Abbott at Hopkins. For this research, I explored aspects of the physiological ecology of an abundant intertidal red alga, Porphyra perforata and married a sweet and supportive guy. John West and Robert Robichaux entered as my sponsors for a 2 yr Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley where I continued with Porphyra projects. I returned to taxonomic interests with a postdoc at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, sponsored by Jim Norris. The University of Hawai'i had just advertised for a tropical marine ecologist as my position at Natural History was ending; I applied for and ultimately accepted that position in 1988. Our first son was born the week after final grades were passed in. The research interests that lead to this mission started with observations by Dr Linda Walters, now of the University of Central Florida. Plants of the green alga Halimeda discoidea surprisingly were able to live after being cut into small fragments via fish bites or razor slices. This remarkable fragmentation ability lead us to wonder how do fragments survive in the field? How many fragments are generated over a day? What is the impact of this asexual reproduction on the genetic structure of Halimeda populations. Ultimately, our goal is to produce a dynamic life-history model for Halimeda tuna that considers growth rate, relationship of growth to ambient light levels and day length, rates of fragmentation and extent of sexual reproduction. A lot of people ask " Why do you come all the way from Hawaii to dive here in Florida?" The answer is simple: Aquarius and NURC allow us to accomplish studies that we could never complete at home. I'm lucky to have a husband and two sons who see it this way, too. Relevant publications include:
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