Erica Goetze is a biological oceanographer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Oceanography at University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focuses on the ecology, genetics and evolution of marine zooplankton. She is currently funded by the National Science Foundation to work in two primary research areas: (1) population genetics/genomics of marine zooplankton, and (2) development of new molecular tools to study plankton dynamics in the coastal ocean. On this research expedition aboard the R/V Falkor, she will be working with the Multiple Opening and Closing Net with Environmental Sensing System (MOCNESS) to sample pelagic invertebrate communities from the surface ocean down to ~ 1500m. This material will be used to develop new DNA sequence-based techniques to assess diversity and detect undescribed species in these communities. She is excited about this relatively rare opportunity to train graduate students and postdocs in use of the MOCNESS. As chief scientist on the cruise, she is also facilitating other graduate student and postdoctoral research on plankton grazing, egg production, and fluorescence, in addition to providing general oversight and cruise coordination.
Erica received a BA in Biology from Wesleyan University, and a PhD from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego in 2004. After a brief postdoctoral fellowship position at the Natural History Museum in London, she moved to Copenhagen for a 2-year postdoctoral position at the Danish Institute for Fisheries Research. She joined the faculty at UH Manoa in the summer of 2008, and is currently graduate faculty in both the Oceanography Department and the Marine Biology graduate program.
Cruises:
