Doherty Marine Biology Postdoctoral Scholars
Bowdoin recognized that the addition of a postdoctoral position would help support the teaching and research activities at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center, as well as develop a community of academics who might, in subsequent years, return to SCSC for continuing research as well as send their students to SCSC.
The Doherty position enhances the marine research and course opportunities available to students at Schiller and engages outside researchers with the College through symposia and workshops organized by Doherty post-doctoral scholars. Postdocs mentor undergraduates with summer research and honors research projects and write peer-reviewed publications with Bowdoin students as co-authors.
Recipients
2021-2022: Katie DuBois
Katie is a marine ecologist interested in how ecological and evolutionary feedbacks determine species resilience to environmental change. Her research focuses on seagrass ecosystem response to rising ocean temperatures. A primary goal of her research is to understand how physiological mechanisms determine response of individuals to environmental stress and how these processes scale-up to influence population and community dynamics. Katie received a B.A. in Biology from Bowdoin College, and a Ph.D. in Marine Ecology from the University of California- Davis.
Katie taught Life in a Changing Sea (Spring 2021) and Methods in Ocean Change Ecology as part of the Marine Science Semster in Fall 2021.
2018-2019: Brittany Jellison
Brittany Jellison is a marine ecologist conducting research broadly interested in how coastal marine organisms are responding, acclimating and adapting to human-altered environments.
Brittany received her Ph.D. from the University of California Davis where she conducted research on ocean acidification.
Her thesis research focused on understanding how changing ocean chemistry will impact marine communities.
Spring 2014-2016: Sarah Kingston
Sarah Kingston is a molecular ecologist, and teaches courses for the Biology department and for the Bowdoin Marine Science Semester. Utilizing molecular tools to look at hybrid zones, Kingston has studied a wide variety of organisms from dolphins to birds to mussels.
Kingston is currently researching the genetic basis of mussel response to a changing oceanic environment.
She received a B.A. from William and Mary, an M.S. from the College of Charleston, and her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland.
2012-2012: Trevor Rivers
Trevor Rivers arrived at Bowdoin in June 2011 and immediately began working at the Bowdoin marine lab with Tamara Perreault (’12) studying bioluminescent-based predator avoidance in a marine worm. Trevor did his Ph.D. at Cornell University studying vision-based behavior in marine systems, with a particular focus on bioluminescence.
Trevor is also interested in the role of anthropogenic light (light pollution) on the behavior of marine animals, from the individual to the community level, and is concurrently working on a project studying the effects of light pollution on fouling community structure.
While at Bowdoin Trevor has taught a biology course for non-majors: Senses in the Ocean, and a senior seminar: Visual Ecology of Marine Animals. Additionally he has mentored three students with summer research projects that have continued into independent study and honors research at the marine Lab. He is currently advising two honors candidates in Biology.
Bowdoin College and Trevor Rivers also hosted a Marine Ecology Symposium Spring 2012.
Trevor received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University, 2007, and B.S. major, marine biology, minor in chemistry, Magna Cum Laude, Western Washington University, 2000.
2008-2010: Daniel Thornhill
Before arriving at Bowdoin College in the Fall of 2008 Dan Thornhill was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Auburn University. In the Fall of 2009 Courtney C.J. Bell '10 and Will Hatleberg '11 joined Dan and his Auburn University research colleagues on a 10-day research cruise aboard the R/V Seward Johnson to the Gulf of Mexico. The research trip was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
A ‘manned’ submersible, the Johnson-Sea-Link II was used to collect samples of deepsea annelid tubeworms and other rarely seen species that live off fossil fuels bubbling up through the sediments to the ocean floor. The team was trying to understand the symbiosis between tubeworms and their bacteria. The trip followed a Doherty summer research fellowship for Will Hatleberg in 2009 and preceded his second Doherty fellowship, summer 2010. Will is presently working on an honors project and research publication on this research topic.
Surprisingly, the group of worms the group studied in the Gulf of Mexico can also be found living on the bones of decomposing whales throughout the world. CJ Bell ‘12 took an interest in these whale bone eating worms and designed an independent study project with Dan studying the invertebrate fauna associated with marine mammal decomposition in the Gulf of Maine over the 2010-2011 academic year.
Dan Thornhill and five independent study students (CJ Bell ‘10, Laura Newcomb ‘11, Lisa Walsh ‘11, Gina Lonati ‘12 and Claire Ellwanger ‘12) spent the first week of spring break (2010) in Key Largo, Florida. The students had a short course on coastal ecology in south Florida and explored how water changes ecosystems as it moves from the marshes and glades of the Everglades through mangrove forests, seagrass beds, coral reefs and out into the open ocean. Dan and the students also conducted a research project on free-living coral symbionts (research that has led to Lisa Walsh’s honors project). During his time at Bowdoin, Dan advised seven summer research students, and three honors projects. He also taught a course on Coral Reef Biology and Evolution.
2005-2008: Jonathan Allen
Jon Allen received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005 and was soon after selected as the first Doherty Marine Biology Scholar. Throughout the years, he conducted research with many students. He worked with 6 students on very different topics, from the larval growth of Maine seastars to egg capsule distribution in Nucella lapillus as a strategic maternal investment and the predation of benthic and plankton invertebrates in Harpswell sound. Allen also advised two honors projects. However, he also engaged with students in the classroom, teaching the upper level course Marine Larval Ecology in 2004-2005, as well as a nonmajors science course Evolution in America in 2007-2007 at the college.
He organized two symposiums held at Bowdoin, both exhibiting current research about the state of marine ecology in Maine. Collectively, these symposiums brought 52 researchers to the college. After three years as the Doherty Postdoctoral Scholar, Allen accepted a teaching position at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. After a year at Randolph Macon College, Jon accepted a teaching position at the College of William and Mary.