Victoria Boatwright: Victoria is a Physical Oceanography PhD student in the Petrik and Miller research groups. She received her B.S. in Biological Physics from Georgetown University. Past research topics include eddy-induced chlorophyll distributions in the California Current System via a ROMS model; impacts to primary productivity through mixing from offshore wind turbines in the North Sea through a turbulence-resolving LES simulation; and investigating the frontogenesis equation via phytoplankton impacting the irradiance term. Her overarching research interests include submesoscale to mesoscale coastal dynamics, coupling of physical and biogeochemical modeling, offshore wind simulations of changing coastal and biophysical interactions, and climate change impacts on ocean feedbacks. Additionally, she is curious about how we can use natural systems as climate solutions, including ocean carbon storage and sequestration, marine rehabilitation, and marine energy sources.

Jared Brzenski:

Kathryn Chen: Kathryn is a staff research assistant in the Petrik research group (and soon to be Biological Oceanography PhD student). She received her B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California, San Diego. Past research topics have included the impacts of marine protected areas on fish populations with the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program; ecology and conservation of nesting sea turtles in Guanacaste, Costa Rica; and patterns in global fish spawning seasonality. Currently, she is investigating climate influences on larval fish phenology in the California Current Ecosystem. She is broadly interested in quantitative ecology, fish early life history and recruitment dynamics, and anthropogenic drivers of change in marine fisheries, as well as the bridges between marine science research and the lives of everyday people.

Rémy Denéchère: Dr. Denéchère is a postdoc in the Petrik research group. He received his PhD in marine biology at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). In addition, Dr. Denéchère has developed a strong background in fundamental ecology and mathematics at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. He further expanded his knowledge of the size- and trait-based approach of marine ecosystems to understand global patterns in ecological systems. His past research includes work on 1) the Metabolic Theory of Ecology that resolves how individual metabolism and traits scale to population-level properties; 2) the trait- and size-based model of marine ecosystems, FEISTY; 3) the ecological role of fast-living squid in structuring ecosystems; 4) the effect of density dependence on the rate of fishing-induced evolution. Dr. Denéchère’s current research at SIO aims to understand the top-down and bottom-up interactions between fish and plankton to improve our predictions of fish distributions and catches and the potential implications of fish feedbacks on the biological pump.

Jonathan Falciani: Jonathan is a Biological Oceanography PhD student in the Petrik research group. He received his B.S. in Biology and Mathematics from Temple University. In the past, Jonathan has researched genomic molecular clocks and introduced species networks via shipping routes in the Caribbean. He transitioned to aquatic ecology where he developed skills in 1) remote sensing by assessing Atlantic salmon habitat using satellite Earth observations and 2) numerical modeling by predicting carbon cycling through fish communities. At SIO, Jonathan wants to continue modeling the way biogeochemical cycling, animal communities, and anthropogenic harvesting interact. Broadly, he aims to understand how climate change and harvesting affects the distribution of biomass in the global ocean by integrating biological, economic, and Earth system models. This way, we can manage climate and conservation goals while factoring societal consumption needs.

Lily McGill: Dr. McGill is a postdoc in the Semmens and Petrik research groups. She completed a BS in Environmental Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management at the University of Washington, where she worked with Drs. E. Ashley Steel and Gordon Holtgrieve. Her PhD research focused on understanding historical and future changes to western river water sources, temperature, and hydrology. Her current research at SIO seeks to model the fate and transport of pollutants from the recently rediscovered San Pedro Basin barrel field though the California pelagic food web using archived data from the CalCOFI ecosystem monitoring program. Dr. McGill’s overarching research interest is in harnessing quantitative methods to address management relevant questions in both freshwater and marine science.

Tyler Morgan: Tyler is a Biological Oceanography PhD student in the Barton and Petrik research groups. He received his B.S. in Marine Science with a minor in Statistics from California State University, Monterey Bay. Tyler’s prior research as an NSF Geobridge participant at Moss Landing Marine Labs and NASA DEVELOP intern primarily utilized remote sensing and models to study habitats in the California Current System, including how physical conditions affect kelp biomass across latitudes along the California coast, and Marine Heatwave and sheltering dynamics over the Hawaiian archipelago. His current research at SIO studies the effect of Marine Heatwaves on phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish food webs at the global scale using biogeochemical models. Tyler aspires to understand coastal ocean modeling and data assimilation techniques to investigate habitats and food webs specific to the California Current System in the future.

Past Members

Hyung-Gyu Lim: Dr. Lim was a postdoc in the Petrik research group. He received his PhD in climate dynamics at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in South Korea. He spent three years as a postdoc jointly between the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at Princeton University and NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory working with Dr. John Dunne and Dr. Charles Stock. Dr. Lim has a strong background in climate dynamics and oceanography, which he has been applying to examine the interactions of climate variability with biogeochemistry and plankton. Past research topics have been diverse and include 1) an assessment of satellite chlorophyll observations to characterize modes of variability and assess opportunities for empirical prediction, 2) multi-model analysis of Arctic biogeochemistry and chlorophyll-climate feedback under climate warming, 3) mechanisms underlying ENSO-biogeochemistry-chlorophyll evolution in GFDL’s Earth system models, and 4) the role of modeled dynamic terrestrial dust variability on ocean biogeochemistry. Dr. Lim’s research at SIO aimed to understand how much of the interannual variance in fisheries production is explained by climate variability at regional and global scales, how predictable are ecosystem changes, and what are the mechanisms involved. Dr. Lim is now a Distinguished Senior Research Scientist at the Korean Institution of Ocean Science and Technology.