On August 17th my new group member Jeana Drake started. Jeana will work as a staff research associate to help me with the lab setup and to conduct our first field work off Los Angeles.

Jeana has a marine background and just finished her PhD in Paul Falkowski’ lab at Rutgers University in New Jersey (Congrats!). Her past research has focused on nitrogen cycling in coastal benthic marine systems.  These include brackish lagoons, coral atolls and fringing reefs, and seagrass beds.  Most recently, she has used biochemical, geochemical, and molecular biology tools to describe the identity and function of proteins used by stony corals to make their skeletons.

Welcome, Jeana, to UCLA and my lab!