Becca Maher

NSF Graduate Research Fellow
maherr@oregonstate.edu

Office: (541) 737-8605
Other: (541) 737-7793 (lab)

Nash Hall

Nash Hall 446

2820 SW Campus Way

2820 SW Campus Way
Corvallis, OR 97331

Nash Hall

Nash Hall 452

2820 SW Campus Way

2820 SW Campus Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
Curriculum Vitae: 
Location: 

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At OSU
Affiliated with: 

Microbiology

Microbiology
Microbiology
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Research/Career Interests: 

I am an NSF Graduate Research Fellow studying how local and global stressors alter the coral host and its associated microbial community. As part of project CHOMPIN, I conducted a month-long tank experiment at the Gump Research Station on Moorea, French Polynesia in September 2017. With my dissertation work, I will investigate how stressors such as fish predation, thermal stress, and nutrient enrichment act synergistically, additively, or antagonistically to destabilize the coral microbiome over time.

Biography

I received a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Rice University in May 2016. In the Correa Lab at Rice, I studied macrobioerosion in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary with funding from Sigma Xi Grants-in-aid-of-research. I presented my undergraduate work with a poster at the 13th International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu, Hawaii in June 2016 and currently have two publications on mesophotic bioerosion in review. I joined the Vega Thurber Lab in September 2016 to work on project CHOMPIN. In April 2017, I received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. In fall of 2017, I spent 5 weeks at the Gump Biological Research Station in French Polynesia conducting a tank experiment. I gave an oral presentation of the preliminary results from project CHOMPIN at the European Coral Reef Symposium in Oxford, UK in December 2017. In addition to my PhD in Microbiology, I am working on coursework for a minor in Biological Data Science.

My Publications