Global Change Biology

Bravo- 134 All-woman Antarctic field research team

Bravo- 134 *may* be the first all-woman field team in Antarctica. Our research team boasts a female Principal Investigator (Dr. Grechten Hofmann), Postdoctoral fellow (Dr. Pauline Yu), two PhD graduate students (Lydia Kapsenberg and Amanda Kelley), and an undergraduate student (Olivia Turnross). Collectively, we span the breadth of academia, with the goal of characterizing the mechanism of response Antarctic sea urchins utilize to cope with the predicted changes to the ocean environment. These changes include ocean acidification, as well as elevated temperatures, and variations in salinity, all factors associated with ocean change.

My name is Amanda Kelley, and I am currently a graduate student at Portland State University in Portland, OR. This website is an attempt to bring cutting-edge, global change related science to the general public, in an effort to illustrate how humans impact the living world around us, and how we can make changes to alter this course. My graduate research focuses on the thermal physiology of the invasive European green crab, Carcinus maenas, on the west coast of North America. I have also been fortunate to work with Dr. Gretchen Hofmann, a professor at UC Santa Barbara, and this fall, 2012, her research team (me included!), Bravo- 134, will travel to Antarctica to conduct research investigating the effects of ocean acidification on sea urchin development.  

Dr. Gretchen Hofmann

Research in Gretchen Hofmann's Lab group focuses on the ecological physiology of marine organisms, in particularly invertebrates. Although the research projects in the lab are quite diverse, we are collectively interested in understanding the role of changing ocean conditions on physiological traits and in setting species' distribution patterns in the marine environment.

Dr. Hofmann talks about global climate change and ocean acidification

Olivia Turnross is in her senior year in the College of Creative Studies as a Biology major at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has been working in the Hofmann lab for over a year both as a lab assistant, as well as conducting independent research through the McNair scholars program. She is investigating the impacts of ocean acidification and food availability on the larval development of the purple urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Interests within the field of global change biology include the impacts of individual and multiple stressors on the development, evolution and potential for adaptation, as well as the role of material properties and morphology in allowing organisms to inhabit physically stressful environments. She can't wait for her first taste of Antarctic biology at McMurdo Station this summer!


A. Kelley Curriculum Vitae

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Dr. Pauline Yu

Pauline sees the world through larvae-colored lenses. After earning two degrees in California, she's achieving one of her science dreams of doing research on Antarctic larvae. She specializes in developmental physiology, and in particular, how planktonic organisms interface with and are affected by their seawater environment. 

Lydia Kapsenberg

Is a 3rd year PhD student in Dr. Gretchen Hofmann's lab at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her predominant interests are assessing the effect of ocean acidification on marine invertebrate physiology with an ecophysiology perspective. Her dissertation research is centered around the connection between current pH dynamics in the field and performance of organisms in laboratory ocean acidification experiments in temperate and polar ecosystems. She is currently conducting research in the Channel Islands National Park, California, USA, and in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.