
Tracey Sutton, PhD - Principal Investigator, Director
Dr. Tracey Sutton is a Professor at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center of Nova Southeastern University, located in Dania Beach, Florida. He is currently the Director and Lead Investigator of DEEPEND (www.deependconsortium.org), a 120+-member research consortium formed in 2015 that has published over 100 scientific papers and graduated over 60 students with advanced degrees. Prior to that, Sutton led the Pelagic Nekton working group of the Census of Marine Life program MAR-ECO. He is an invited Expert Panelist on the United Nations First and Second World Ocean Assessments, an Advisory Board member of the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative, and a society-elected member of the Board of Governors of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. He is a recent (2019) recipient of the NSU Provost’s Research and Scholarship Award, given annually to a single faculty member across all NSU Colleges. He earned a Ph.D. at the College of Marine Sciences, University of South Florida, and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA.
Sutton is a biological oceanographer who conducts research on oceanic ecosystem structure, marine food webs, benthic-pelagic coupling, ichthyology, taxonomy, systematics, and biogeography. He is a seagoing scientist (90 cruises) who has conducted research in a wide range of ecosystems, including the North Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Sargasso Sea, South Atlantic, Gulf of Alaska, and Southern Ocean. His research combines empirical data, numerical modeling, and theoretical ecology to understand Earth’s largest ecosystem, the deep-pelagic ocean. He has published over 130 papers to date, including discoveries of new species of fishes and a recent synthesis of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the open-ocean biota of the Gulf of Mexico.

Andrea Bernard, PhD - Research Scientist
Andrea Bernard is a Research Scientist at Nova Southeastern University and a member of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center and the DEEPEND|RESTORE Consortium. She earned a BS (Marine and Freshwater Biology) and a MS (Integrative Biology) from the University of Guelph, and completed her PhD in 2013 (Marine Biology) at Nova Southeastern University. Her work focuses on using genetic and genomic tools (DNA sequencing, microsatellites, and single nucleotide polymorphisms) to study the genetic connectivity, demography, biodiversity and evolutionary history of elasmobranchs, billfishes, deep sea fishes and coral reef associated taxa.

Kevin Boswell, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Kevin M. Boswell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and faculty member in the Marine Sciences Program at Florida International University and holds an adjunct appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University. He currently runs the Fisheries Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory at Florida International University and has co-founded the SouthEast Regional Acoustics Consortium aimed at bringing awareness of acoustic technologies and processing techniques to scientists and fisheries managers in the Southeast US and greater Caribbean. His primary research interests are in marine science and fisheries ecology with emphasis on the integration of advanced sampling technologies, primarily active acoustic technologies and processing methods. His research focuses on the role of habitat (physical and hydrodynamic) in structuring coastal and marine communities at various spatial and temporal scales, the consequences of an animal’s movement and behavior among habitats, trophic interactions and alterations in refuge quantity and quality. With respect to DEEPEND, he will oversee the active acoustics component focusing on examining the biological scattering patterns throughout the water column, across the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Heather Bracken-Grissom - Co-Principal Investigator
My name is Heather Bracken-Grissom and I am an Associate Professor in the Biology Department and the Assistant Director of Coastlines and Oceans Division in the Institute of Environment at Florida International University. I have a molecular evolution research lab and teach Invertebrate Zoology and Oceanography at Sea. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the evolution of marine invertebrates with an emphasis on decapod crustaceans (crabs, lobsters and shrimp). This subject allows me to address issues related to their biodiversity, genetics, ecology, biogeography, development, and conservation. Much of my work has been conducted in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, western Atlantic and eastern Pacific Ocean where I have had the opportunity to help organize and participate in several major research expeditions. My current role in the DEEPEND Consortium will be to lead the crustacean and fish genetic components. This will include documentation and examination of temporal and spatial genetic diversity in the Gulf of Mexico. My interest in decapod crustaceans blossomed early during my undergraduate years at UC Santa Barbara and through my graduate (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and postdoctoral studies (Brigham Young University). When I am not in the lab, field, or office, I love participating in triathlons and almost anything outdoors related….Oh yes, I also thoroughly enjoy dining on my study subjects!

April Cook - Project Manager
April Cook is currently the Database Manager for the NOAA NRDA Offshore Nekton Sampling and Analysis Program at Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center. She earned a BS in Marine Science from Coastal Carolina University and a MS in Marine Science from the College of William & Mary. Her research focuses on the biology, ecology, and community structure of deep-sea fishes. As Project Manager for DEEPEND, she will organize field sampling activities, administrate program subawards, and organize consortium meetings and reporting activities. She will also serve as Research Scientist, assisting with deep-sea fish identification and distributional analyses.

Marta D’Elia, PhD - Research Scientist
Dr. Marta D’Elia is a post-doctoral research scientist in the Fisheries Ecology and Acoustic lab at FIU where she broadly focused on understanding the dynamic of the fish and the principal interactions and processes that influence them across a range of spatial and temporal scales. She has an MS degree in environmental science. She graduated from the “Environmental Management and Analysis of Marine Ecosystem”, program at University of Palermo (Italy) and she earned her PhD at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice (Italy). She worked at the National Research Council of Italy before joining FIU. Within the DEEPEND project Marta will primarily be working for Dr. Kevin Boswell in the active acoustic component, to examine patterns in the biological scattering layers and analyse their response to physicochemical parameters, primary productivity and oceanographic conditions.

Danté Fenolio, PhD
Danté Fenolio grew up in the fog-shrouded redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains in California. Pacific Giant Salamanders and Red Legged Frogs were a regular part of his daily childhood experience. He has maintained and bred in captivity a variety of amphibian species, including endangered species like the Darwin's Frog, Rhinoderma darwinii, and the Malagasy Tomato Frog, Dyscophus antongilii, as well as species that previously had been infrequently bred, like the live bearing West African caecilian, Geotrypetes seraphini, and Leaf Frogs such as the Yellow-eyed Leaf Frog, Agalychnis annae, and the Amazonian Leaf Frog, Cruziohyla craspedopus.
With a combined undergraduate degree in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Fenolio earned a Masters degree in Zoology from the University of Oklahoma, where he examined the population ecology of Ozark Blind Cave Salamanders, Eurycea spelaea. Danté then earned a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Miami, Florida, involving amphibian conservation and taxonomy. After graduate school, Fenolio worked for the Atlanta Botanical Garden, helping to coordinate both local and international amphibian conservation efforts and to develop captive breeding methods for endangered species. Perhaps the most significant project while with the Garden was the development of the Chilean Amphibian Conservation Center, in Santiago, Chile. The collaboration with the National Zoo of Chile works to develop captive assurance colonies of endangered Chilean amphibians and to monitor wild populations for emergent infectious disease – see www.savedarwinsfrogs.org
Danté now runs the Department of Conservation and Research for the San Antonio Zoo. Diverse conservation programs include: (1) continuation of work with endangered Chilean amphibians with the National Zoo of Chile in Santiago and with the Austral University of Chile, (2) work in China with endangered blind cave fish, collaborating with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, (3) work with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to better document the range of the Georgia Blind Salamander, (4) work with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to continue 15 years of bioinventory work in the Ozarks documenting the diversity of subterranean wildlife there, (5) work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a captive colony of the critically endangered Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander, (6) a training program for indigenous Peruvians to develop skills (such as Japanese fish printing “gyotaku”) that provide revenue streams which do not rely on forest removal for income, and (7) development of a captive breeding program at the San Antonio Zoo for the Japanese Giant Salamander.
Fenolio's research interests involve the ecology of animals living in challenging environments, like subterranean ecosystems, deep water environments, or forest canopies. He also works with Brazilian colleagues in Central Brazil, performing bioinventories of areas involved with hydroelectric power plant projects.

Tammy Frank, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Tammy Frank is a professor at Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center. Her educational background includes a B.S. from California State University, Long Beach, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She came to Florida in 1992 as a post-doctoral fellow at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, after post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Connecticut Medical School and Hatfield Marine Science Center in Oregon. Discovering that Florida is the only state in the continental U.S. that met her temperature requirements, she has lived in Florida ever since. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the NOAA National Undersea Research Program, and the NOAA Ocean Exploration program. She has been chief scientist on 50 research cruises, and participated on 45 more as a lucky hitchhiker, conducting work off the coasts of the Bahamas, California, the Canary Islands, Cuba, Costa Rica, Florida, Iceland, Hawaii and Samoa. Her research focus for the DEEPEND project will be analyzing the distribution patterns of deep-sea shrimp, examining geographical differences that can be correlated to environmental conditions (currents, temperatures), day vs. night abundance differences as indicators of vertical migrations, and seasonal differences to determine if there is a seasonality to their reproductive behavior. In addition to conducting her research, she teaches Anatomy and Physiology to undergraduates, and marine physiology and deep-sea biology to graduate students. .

Matthew Johnston, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator, Data Manager
Matthew Johnston is an Associate Professor of Biology at Nova Southeastern University. Matt received his BS in information systems from Linfield College, MS (2011) and PhD (2015) in marine biology from Nova Southeastern University. His research focuses on the incursion patterns of marine invasive species, such as the lionfish, founded on the development of cellular automaton computer models which couple physical oceanographic measurements with biological traits of the invader. Matt has provided programming support for such institutions as the Guy Harvey Research Institute, Living Oceans Foundation, the IUCN, and the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance. More information about his research can be found on his website. For the DEEPEND project, Matt is the Data Manager, Webmaster, and Co-Principal Investigator. He will also provide ancillary programming support for the project.

Heather Judkins, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Heather Judkins is an associate professor in the Integrative Biology department at the University of South Florida - St. Petersburg campus. She received her Bachelors degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island, Masters degree in Science Education from Nova Southeastern University and her PhD in Biological Oceanography from the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on cephalopods as a model group to examine the evolution, ecology, biogeography, and effects that may have occurred due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Her role in this projects involves any of the molluscs that are collected (cephalopods, pteropods, heteropods) and exploring various questions for each group- including diet studies, life history of various family groups, as well as participating in any education/outreach efforts that are a part of the DEEPEND/RESTORE project.

Rosanna Milligan, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Rosanna Milligan is an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University. Rosanna earned her PhD (Deep-Sea Ecology) at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her research interests lie in understanding how the distributions and biodiversity patterns of deep-sea animals are shaped by both natural and anthropogenic drivers across multiple scales. She is particularly interested in the role that mobile fauna (particularly fishes) may play in connecting spatially and temporally disconnected ecosystems. Her Seascape Ecology Lab has a strong focus on data analysis, where she and her team use a variety of statistical and data-driven approaches to better understand dynamic spatial distributions and diversity patterns in deep-sea animals and their driving processes in open ocean and deep-sea ecosystems. As we gain a better understanding of the natural drivers of change within such ecosystems, we will be better able to understand and predict the effects of increasing human impacts at all ocean depths.

Jon Moore, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Jon Moore is a Professor of Biology at the Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. He also is affiliated with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at FAU and a curatorial affiliate at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Biology Department at Yale University and was a NRC postdoctoral fellow at the National Marine Fisheries Service Lab in Woods Hole, MA. He participated in the NOAA NRDA Gulf of Mexico Offshore Sampling and Analysis Program (ONSAP) as a fish taxonomist. Previously, he contributed to the Census of Marine Life project Census of Seamounts (CENSEAM). He is also currently working with IUCN on the Red Lists of Caribbean and deep-sea fishes. He is a marine biologist with an interest in the ecology and evolution of deepwater fishes, biogeography of fishes, and the ecology of deep benthic habitats, although he also gets distracted by terrestrial ecology, particularly herpetology. For the DEEPEND project, he has contributed to the field collection and preservation of pelagic animals, identification of deep pelagic fishes, collection of tissue samples for population genetic analysis, and quantitative analysis of the community structure of deep pelagic fishes.

Pedro A. Peres, PhD - Postdoctoral Associate
My name is Pedro A. Peres and I am a Postdoctoral associate at Florida International University working with Dr. Heather Bracken-Grissom. I earned my MS (Ecology) from the University of Campinas (Brazil) and my PhD (Comparative Biology) from the University of São Paulo (Brazil). Most of my research has been focused on using molecular markers to answer ecological and evolutionary questions. My current role in DEEPEND|RESTORE is to investigate how life histories, diel-vertical migration behavior, and abundance changes impact the temporal and spatial genetic diversity components of deep-sea fish and crustacean species using genomic tools. Our research will contribute to a better understanding of the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but also to unveil some of the biodiversity patterns and processes of the mysterious deep-sea environment.

Isabel Romero, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Isabel Romero is an interdisciplinary scientist interested in the fields of marine biology, ecosystem ecology, and molecular organic and isotope geochemistry. Dr. Romero has studied how ecosystems response to natural and induced disturbances in aquatic and terrestrial environments that ultimately affect local and global elemental cycles. As a biogeochemist, she has worked in a wide range of different projects with particular emphasis on factors controlling the nitrogen cycle, molecular isotopic signatures of carbon and hydrogen, and hydrocarbon contamination. Dr. Romero earned her Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences from the University of Southern California in 2009, worked in several projects in contrasting areas (mangroves, wetlands and lakes), and joined the University of South Florida (USF) in 2011. Since joining USF, Dr. Romero has been involved in multiple projects related to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout providing a multi-proxy approach to better understand the fate of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Her work includes performing geochemistry analyses in sediments and fishes by IRMS, GC-MS and GC-MSMS (bulk carbon and nitrogen isotopes, alkanes, PAHs, hopanes, steranes/diasteranes) and using available hydrocarbon data for elucidating geochemical indicators of ecosystem change. As part of the Consortium DEEPEND, Dr. Romero will be establishing a time series analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in pelagic fauna collected from mesopelagic and bathypelagic depths in the Gulf of Mexico. Her work will provide baseline data to estimate levels of PAH exposure and its potential effects in deep-pelagic communities.

Mahmood Shivji, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Mahmood Shivji is a Professor at Nova Southeastern University and Director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Shark Research Center. His lab uses integrative approaches (genetics, genomics and field work) to investigate the biology, biodiversity, population dynamics, conservation and movement ecology (see www.ghritracking.org) of a broad suite of marine species, with a focus on sharks, billfishes and coral reef organisms. For DEEPEND, Dr. Shivji is working with Dr. Ron Eytan on using genetic and genomic approaches to assess the biodiversity and population dynamics of deep sea fishes.

Michael Vecchione, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
Born in a town called Neptune, Michael Vecchione went to sea as a cabin boy on a three-masted schooner in Maine at the age of 16. He completed undergraduate studies in biology at the University of Miami in 1972, and then spent four and a half years as a U.S. Army officer. He has been working on the biology, evolution, and life history of cephalopods (squids, octopods, and their relatives) since his graduate studies on planktonic molluscs during 1976-79 at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), the School of Marine Science for the College of William and Mary. After receiving the Ph.D degree there, he worked briefly for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before accepting a faculty position at McNeese State University where he studied cephalopods, zooplankton, and ichthyoplankton in addition to teaching from 1981-86. In 1986 he moved to his present position as Cephalopod Biologist at the National Systematics Laboratory (NSL), a NOAA Fisheries lab located at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) where he is an Adjunct Scientist of the Smithsonian Institution. He was Director of the NSL for 18 years. Vecchione is Curator of cephalopods and pteropods at NMNH and a Curator of the Sant Ocean Hall. He also established and served from 2000-2002 as Director of a Cooperative Marine Education and Research program at VIMS, where he is an adjunct faculty member. He has participated in 40 offshore research expeditions, 13 of them as Chief Scientist. Vecchione is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Past-President of the Cephalopod International Advisory Council. The latter awarded him a Career Achievement Award in 2018.

Matt Woodstock, PhD - Co-Principal Investigator
I received my bachelor’s degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavioral Biology from Beloit College in 2015. Later that year, I began my master’s degree in Marine Biology at Nova Southeastern University with Dr. Tracey Sutton and the DEEPEND group. There I completed a thesis focused on the diet and parasites of mesopelagic fishes in the Gulf of Mexico. Following my master’s, I began a PhD at Florida International University working under Dr. Yuying Zhang in the Fisheries and Ecosystem Assessment Lab. My dissertation is centered around developing ecosystem-based models to investigate the ecological importance of mesopelagic fauna and the ecosystem-level impacts that the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill had on the system. Additionally, I am creating consumer-mediated nutrient models to learn more about active nutrient transfer in the oceanic Gulf of Mexico. I am broadly interested in ecosystem functioning and connectivity in the open ocean and the trophic structure of deep-sea food webs.

Yuying Zhang , PhD - Associate Professor
Yuying Zhang is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. Yuying got her Ph.D. at the University of Maine and her research field is Fisheries Population Dynamics, which focuses on the changes in the abundance and structure of populations. Her Fisheries Ecosystem and Assessment Lab focuses on 1) developing realistic assessment models with uncertainty included, 2) analyzing alternative management strategy evaluation systems including simulation models, 3) standardizing data collection and data processing for fisheries assessment, and 4) conducting ecosystem models for the ecosystem-based stock assessment. In this project, the ecosystem models developed by Yuying’s team can be used to explore the relationships among species within the oceanic Gulf of Mexico, identifying the keystone species, studying the dynamics of communities, and understanding how the environmental changes, e.g., the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, affect pelagic and deep-sea organisms.