Our Team

Caitlin Sughrue

Caitlin is a Masters student in Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment. She earned her B.S. in Biology from William & Mary, where she researched blue carbon sequestration in Chesapeake Bay seagrass meadows. Caitlin has worked on aquatic monitoring and eelgrass restoration projects at Cape Cod National Seashore and the Nantucket Land & Water Council. Her current research explores how assisted gene flow can improve the resilience and long-term success of eelgrass restoration under climate change.

Sage Hellberg

Sage Hellberg is an Eelgrass Restoration Technician working with Boston University and the National Park Service as part of the Climate‑Adapted Eelgrass Resilience Project. Previously, she worked for the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, studying kettle pond water quality within the Cape Cod National Seashore. Her background includes wildlife research and conservation, aquatic resources monitoring, and habitat restoration. Raised on the Cape, Sage is passionate about protecting coastal ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

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.

Past Lab Members

2025-2026:  Charlie Mitchell, Eve Phillips, Zachary Anderson

2024-2025:  Kelly Feitz, Georgia Fanthorpe, Rachel Schaefer, Sophia Bryan

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