Marcelino's Lab at Northwestern University

Climate change effects on coral reefs, coral adaptation and acclimatization to warmer oceans

News

  1. June 2023. Marcelino (Principal Investigator) receives funding from CPGE Innovation Fund, The Center for Physical Genomic Engineering (CPGE), Northwestern University (2023- 2024, PI, $65,000) for proposal entitled “Changes in Chromatin structure in corals under heat stress”.
  2. June 2023. New undergraduate researcher Maeve Brady receives McCormick Undergraduate Summer Research Award to work in our lab over the summer. Congratulations Maeve!
  3. June 2023. New undergraduate researcher Kate Virsik receives Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Summer Research Award to work in our lab over the summer. Congratulations Kate!
  4. May 2023. Marcelino (Principal Investigator) receives funding from The Resnick Family Social Impact Fund, Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy, Northwestern University for proposal entitled “Physiological Plasticity and Coral’s Adaptive Response to Warmer Oceans”.
  5. April 2023. We welcome new undergraduate researchers Kayla Shen, Andy Curran, and Joel Kim!
  6. September 2022. Jessica Bailey, an undergraduate researcher in our lab, starts her Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES) program at the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), Northwestern University. Congratulations, Jessica!
  7. January 2022. We welcome new graduate student Aditi Sharma, a Biomedical Engineering student who will be co-supervised by Prof. Marcelino and Prof. Vadim Backman (Biomedical Engineering) doing research on Coral photophysiology to earn her MS.
  8. June 2021. Our new article entitled “A phylogeny-informed analysis of the global coral-Symbiodiniaceae interaction network reveals that traits correlated with thermal bleaching are specific to symbiont transmission mode” was published in mSystems.
  9. September 2020. Our new article entitled “Uncovering the role of Symbiodiniaceae assemblage composition and abundance in coral bleaching response by minimizing sampling and evolutionary biases” was published in BMC Microbiology.
  10. June 2020. Ph.D. candidate Aya Eid, a Biomedical Engineering student co-supervised by Prof. Marcelino and Prof. Vadim Backman (Biomedical Engineering) graduated with her Ph.D. Congratulations Dr. Eid!
  11. December 2019. Our new article entitled “Relating coral skeletal structures at different length scales to growth, light availability to Symbiodinium, and thermal bleaching” was published in Frontiers in Marine Science.
  12. October 2019. Our Scientific Reports article was featured in the news
  13. October 2019. Our new article entitled “Measuring light scattering and absorption in corals with Inverse Spectroscopic Optical Coherence Tomography (ISOCT): a new tool for non-invasive monitoring” was published in Scientific Reports.
  14. August 2019. We congratulate Dr. Timothy Swain, who was our Research Associate, on his new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, Nova Southeastern University. Congratulations Dr. Swain!
  15. July 2019. Professors Jay Alan Yim (Bienen School of Music) and Marlena Novak (’83 MFA Weinberg, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) sought the advice of Prof. Marcelino and Dr. Timothy Swain to create “Choral” an immersive sound and video exhibit of a thriving coral reef.
  16. June 2019. Ph.D. candidate Graham Spicer, a Biomedical Engineering student co-supervised by Prof. Marcelino and Prof. Vadim Backman (Biomedical Engineering) graduated with his Ph.D. Congratulations Dr. Spicer!
  17. May 2019. Undergraduate Fiona Worsfold presents her research at NU EXPO “Relating the Bleaching Response of Coral Species to that of its Assemblages” and ranked third in the poster presentation. Congratulations Fiona!
  18. May 2019. Undergraduate Avery Wallace successfully presented her undergraduate Honor Thesis in Environmental Science (WAS) entitled “The Impact of Accumulated Heating Anomalies on the Bleaching and Mortality of Florida Coral Reefs between 2005 and 2015”.
  19. May 2019. Prof. Marcelino gave an invited presentation at the Master of Project Management Program at Northwestern Expand your Horizons dinner entitled “The Future of Coral Reefs”.
  20. November 2018. Our new article entitled “Physiological integration of coral colonies is correlated with bleaching resistance” was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
  21. November 2018. Our new article entitled “Phylogenetic analysis of symbiont transmission mechanisms reveal evolutionary patterns in thermotolerance and host specificity that enhance bleaching resistance among vertically transmitted Symbiodinium” was published in the European Journal of Phycology.
  22. September 2018. Our high school research intern presented his summer research at the Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY entitled “Understanding Coral Bleaching in the Florida Keys as a Function of Extrinsic Factors, Primarily Temperature Anomalies”. Congratulations Jared!
  23. September 2018. Undergraduate Scott Golberg (WCAS4) presented at the University of Hawaii on “Novel metrics for comparing coral bleaching responses in context of their assemblages”. Congratulations Scott!
  24. September 2018. Prof. Marcelino presented an invited talk at the National Coral Reef Institute, Nova Southeastern University, entitled “Why do corals bleach differently? Two versions of the story told by the coral and its symbiotic algal partner”.
  25. September 2018. Our new article entitled “Physiological integration of coral colonies is correlated with bleaching resistance” was published in Marine Ecol Progress Ser.
  26. May 2018. Jared Caspar from Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY is our new high school research intern for the summer. Welcome Jared!

Our work has been featured in the news: