Our Team
Karina Scavo Lord
Karina is a Lecturer at Boston University (BU). She completed her PhD in the Finnerty Lab at BU where she focused on understanding the role of non-reef coral habitats, like mangroves, to coral survival and evolution and its implications for conservation. Karina is continuing to use these approaches to investigate the spatial scale of heat tolerance and adaptation of populations of the temperate eelgrass, Zostera marina, across the East Coast using both genomic and experimental approaches.
Rachel Beth Schaefer
Rachel is a Postdoctoral Associate at Boston University, co-advised by Dr. Jon Lefcheck of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. She completed a PhD in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she focused on how the ways in which seagrass meadows physically engineer their environment contribute to the ecosystem services they provide. Currently she is working on improving and developing predictive models for the purpose of guiding seagrass restoration efforts, particularly within the context of sea surface temperature increases due to climate change. Outside of research, she enjoys activities such as playing board, card, and video games, reading, and staying active.
Charley Mitchell
Charley is a first year Master’s research student at Boston University. He is in the Biology department and has a focus on Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution. He majored in Marine Science and minored in Biology at Boston University. He is working on eelgrass wasting disease and the impact it has on carbon sequestration rates around the Massachusetts area. In addition, Charley’s is studying the susceptibility of eelgrass populations to wasting disease using genomics and is co-advised by Dr. John Finnerty. When Charley is not performing his research, he likes to run along the Charles River and listen to a wide range of music
Past Students/Technicians
2023-2024: Kimberly Candalerio, Noah Singer
2021-2022: Cece Gerstenbacher, Ryen Guthrie, Ved Ahuja
2019-2021: Hannah Ferraro, Nayantara Srinivasan, Nikki Sarette
2017-2018: Julian Burlando-Salazar, Aryanna Volk, Grace Maddox
2016-2017: Lindsay Peter, Audrey Michniak, Molly Sullivan
2015-2016: Hali Macko, Charley Williford
2015-2017: Hanna Mogensen
