Jeremy Weisz
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Marine Sciences Program
weisz@email.unc.edu

I am currently a graduate student at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences. Like many people, my interest in the ocean, and the life within it, began when I was fairly young. For me, it was on a snorkeling trip in John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo. I was fascinated and excited by all the creatures that I saw, and I longed to understand them. This excitement about the ocean, and about science in general, stayed with me throughout high school and college. I went to the University of Wisconsin - Madison as an undergraduate student, where I majored in zoology. While in college, I worked in a plant pathology lab, and became interested in microbiology and molecular biology. These interests have merged with my interest in marine biology into a dissertation project studying the microbial community of sponges and their influence on the nutrition of the sponge.

I have logged over 300 scientific dives in the waters around North Carolina, the Florida Keys, and Papua New Guinea, including many based at the NURC/UNCW facility in Key Largo. Last year I also had a chance to spend four months in Würzburg, Germany learning molecular biology techniques applied to sponges. I am excited about the opportunity to work in Aquarius because it will allow us to interact much more closely with the inhabitants of the reef and enable us to study sponges in ways that would otherwise be impossible.