Previous Research Projects
Non Invasive Quantification of Coral Pigments
Destructive sampling of coral tissue is required to quantify coral bleaching. As an EPA STAR Fellow, Harmony applied algorithms used in remote sensing to non-invasively measured optical properties of corals (i.e., reflectance) to estimate pigment content. Read more about this work here!
Respiration Rates of Baby Lobsters
In collaboration with Dr. Marla Valentine and Dr. Mark Butler in the Benthic Ecology Lab at ODU, we measured respiration rates in naive and disease-exposed early benthic juveniles of the spiny Caribbean lobster, Panulirus argus.
Prevalence of Dermo Disease Causing Agent in the Eastern Oyster
Perkinsus marinus is the etiologic agent for Dermo disease in the Eastern Oyster. As an undergraduate, Harmony was instrumental in developing the high throughput DNA extraction, amplification, and electrophoresis techniques to test for Perkinsus spp. in the lab of Dr. G. Vasta at UMD’s Center for Marine Biotechnology.
