New Grad Students Join the Lab!

Daniel Lopez is an incoming Masters student to UMass Boston working in the Byrnes Lab. He comes to us from Cal State Monterey Bay (CSUMB -> UMB!) where he wrote his capstone thesis looking at relationships between urchins, abalone, and kelp in the intertidal. Afterwards, he was a fellow in the NASA Develop program.

Here at UMB as part of the Stone Living Lab he will be serving as the lead graduate student on the Living Seawalls project. He is particularly interested in examining the effects of green infrastructure within urbanized coastline on species diversity. How do living seawalls influence what types of species settle and establish themselves on urban structures? Are these structures helpful for native fauna, or do they promote species invasions? Daniel brings boundless energy, solid experience, and a unique perspective to the Stone Living Lab, and we’re delighted to have him.

Curtis Morris is a new PhD student joining the Stone Living Lab and the Byrnes Lab in the School for the Environment at UMass Boston. Over the next several years, Curtis will be exploring the mysteries of urban intertidal ecology and will primarily be working on biological monitoring for the cobble berm project and the REACT multi-tiered coastal protection structure. He comes to Boston from Maine where he worked as a marine research technician studying the impact of climate change on the trophic ecology of larval lobsters.

Curtis is looking forward to settling in the city and is eager to sample its diverse array of restaurants and coastal recreation opportunities. When he is not collecting data in the field, Curtis enjoys beach combing, free and SCUBA diving, hiking, and cooking exciting foods.