Current Lab Members & Affiliates

Aaron Galloway; PhD, Associate Professor, OIMB (PI)

Aaron works on aquatic trophic ecology, with a focus on fatty acids as biomarkers for inferring food web relationships and tracking across-system energy subsidies. Aaron completed his Ph.D. in 2013 at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, working at Friday Harbor Laboratories. Aaron is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Oregon Institute of Marine Biology.

Jessie Masterman; PhD Candidate, OIMB

Jessie is interested in studying marine trophic ecology through a chemistry lens, with a particular focus on gelatinous organisms. Jessie received B.S. degrees in geology and chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 2010 and a M.S. degree in marine science from KAUST in Saudi Arabia in 2012, under Dr. Michael Berumen. After a stint in industry, Jessie has returned to marine science at OIMB, where she is working on the trophic ecology of gelatinous zooplankton.

Elizabeth Diehl, PhD Candidate, OIMB

Elizabeth’s research centers on determining changes to the marine food web in Coos Bay due to the European green crab invasion. She is interested in quantifying green crab consumption of important fisheries species, such as Pacific oyster and Dungeness crab. Elizabeth received an in 2022 at Western Washington University, where she worked with the Puget Sound Restoration Fund on the recovery of pinto abalone. Her research investigated how water chemistry impacts abalone survival and radula development. See Elizabeth's ResearchGate.

Kersten Schnurle, 1st Year PhD Student, OIMB

Kersten studies and teaches kelp forest ecology through research diving. She graduated from Stanford University in 2012 with her MS and BS in Earth Systems: Oceans, focusing on Marine Science and Policy. Since then, she has worked as a wilderness river guide, outdoor educator, and science diver throughout the West and beyond. She is interested in invertebrate community ecology, trophic interactions, and kelp conservation.

Rhodalyn Tetteh; PhD Candidate, ESSP, OIMB

Rhodalyn is interested in marine trophic ecology from a Political Ecology perspective, exploring the social-political factors that contribute to the production and use of plastics in society, and how they contribute to marine microplastic pollution. Rhodalyn received a BSc degree in Environmental Science (2015), and an MA in Environmental Management and Policy (2017) both from the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana. She is co-supervised in her Ph.D. by Dr. Peter Walker and Dr. Galloway. She can be reached by email.

Mike Thomas; Lab Manager (current), MS, OIMB (2017-2019)

Mike has broad interests in marine and aquatic invertebrate ecology. During his work in CTELab he investigated the trophic ecology of larval and juvenile Dungeness crabs in the Coos Bay estuary for his MS (completed in 2019). Mike is currently our lab manager and leads the CTELab fee-for-service biomarker tasks.  

Emily Vidusic, Research Technician, OIMB

Emily is interested in quantitative kelp forest ecology. She is researching kelp forest trophic interactions by using novel applications of statistical analyses and multivariate model building. She received her B.S. in Marine Science and Statistics minor in 2023 from California State University, Monterey Bay, where she studied rocky intertidal ecology for 2 years. As a research technician, Emily is currently focused on the Kelp Forest Snapshot Assessment project with the Oregon Kelp Alliance (ORKA).

Aubrey Taradash, MS Student, OIMB

Bio coming soon