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Hedi B. S. Borgeas B.S. University of Arizona, 1994 Growing up in Arizona does not sound like the most conducive location to being a marine biologist. However, I was lucky my junior year at the University of Arizona to become interested in algae. I took two classes, Aquaculture and Freshwater Algae, simply because they fit in my schedule. I was hooked. For the next two summers I worked on Molokai, Hawai'i on a research project helping locals grow different seaweed species for economic purposes. It was there I met Celia Smith, who would soon be my major professor when I went to graduate school in 1995 at the University of Hawai'i. My interests in graduate school shifted from working with red to green algae, which are common foulers on marine structures. In conjunction with others in our lab, I studied biofilms and their influence on Enteromorpha flexuosa (a green alga) spore settlement. After completing my field work, I had the chance to work with Catherine Unabia at Kewalo Marine Lab and conduct a settlement study that compared how algal spores (Enteromorpha flexuosa) and animal larvae (Hydroides elegans, a polychaete worm) respond to potential settlement cues housed in monospecific bacterial films. After finishing my thesis, I knew I wanted to continue working in a tropical/semi-tropical
environment and headed to Florida. I began teaching in 1998 at the University
of Tampa and have also become the Freshman Biology Laboratory Coordinator.
Given my locale, I have had the opportunity to continue algal research
by working with Dr. Kevin Beach, a colleague from UH and UT, as well as
Dr. Linda Walters. So, in my short phycological career, I have been able
to work with not only red and green algae, but now have moved onto the
browns. My current research focuses on the attachment and reproductive
physiology of Dictyota species in the Florida Keys. |
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