Members of CaGe
Alex J. Veglia, M.Sc. - Ph.D. Student at RICE
I am a current PhD student in the Correa Lab at Rice University. I recently completed my Masters at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez in Dr. Nikolaos Schizas’ Lab where I investigated cyanophage inhabiting coral reef invertebrates. In my PhD, I look to expand my virus research efforts by investigating viral roles in coral health, functioning and evolution. Specifically, I want to identify and isolate candidate disease-inducing bacterial and eukaryotic viruses from coral tissue. The motivation of this work is to facilitate comprehensive phenotypic and genotypic characterization of coral viruses to advance our current understanding of viral roles in coral reef disease.
Paulo Henrique Costa Corgosinho, Ph.D. - Prof. Dep. Biologia Geral
I am a marine and freshwater biologist with with MSc degree in Zoology and a PhD degree in Freshwater Biology. With 20 years of experience in Brazil and abroad, I have developed my studies in tropical and temperate freshwater and marine environments, from groundwater, surface water to deep sea ecosystems. With more than 30 academic publications, I have expertise in biodiversity and use of marine and freshwater invertebrates as bioindicators of water quality and environmental integrity. Since May 2019, I am professor of Invertebrate Zoology at the State University of Minas Gerais.
Ramón E. Rivera-Vicéns, M.Sc. - Ph.D. Student at LMU
I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow within the European network ITN-IGNITE and work in the Molecular Geobiology and Paleobiology Lab at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gert Wörheide. For my project, I use genomics and bioinformatics to study the sponge holobiont system. I have an M.Sc. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.
Nikolaos Schizas, Ph.D. - Prof. University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
Nikolaos Schizas is a Professor of Invertebrate Biology at the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. His laboratory is based on Magueyes Island surrounded by mangrove, seagrass and coral reef habitats. He is leading a bustling lab dedicated to graduate and undergraduate research emphasizing individual and group projects. His currently funded research includes the biodiversity, connectivity and effects of major climatic and environmental disturbances on Caribbean nearshore and mesophotic reefs. Other ongoing projects include the biodiversity of Caribbean benthic and pelagic taxa using metabarcoding methods, the detection of grouper aggregations through eDNA techniques, microbiome diversty of mesophotic coral reef communities and the evolution of copepods. Since 2010, Schizas has participated in 4 scientific cruises studying the mesophotic reefs of US Caribbean and Bermuda.
Jaaziel E García-Hernández, M.Sc. - Ph.D. at UPRM
I am a PhD student and scientific technical diver (AAUS) in Dr. Schizas laboratory where I focus in studying the biodiversity of Caribbean coral reefs, with emphasis on marine sponges and corals inhabiting sciophilous environments (i.e., caves, caverns, overhangs, coral rubble) within shallow and mesophotic ecosystems. I am also interested in ecological interactions between sponges and other marine organisms (i.e., corals, ascidians, fish, and zoantharians), as well as understanding the evolutionary history (biogeography, systematics, speciation, and morphological evolution) and ecology of calcareous sponges within tropical and sub-tropical coral reef ecosystems.
Alejandro J. Gonzalez Montes - M.Sc. Student at UPRM
Alejandro is a master student working with Dr. Schizas at the Marine Genomics Biodiverity Lab at UPRM. He works on various species of corals from the Caribbean. He studies the connectivity between shallow and mesophotic corals and their microbiomes.
Jean P. Domenech Ramos - M.Sc. Student at UPRM
Jean P is a master student working with Dr. Schizas at the Marine Genomics Biodiverity Lab at UPRM. He works on population connectivity of Cletocamptus copepods in Puerto Rico.
