Excited to be attending my first Reef Futures conference, where I will be both presenting my own research and running a CORDAP workshop on bridging the scientist-practitioner gap.

Excited to be attending my first International Marine Conservation Congress to discuss capacity development for coral conservation and restoration

My first ICRI meeting, just down the road in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I’ll be representing CORDAP.

Back to little Bahrain to see how these mega-high-temperature reefs are doing.

CORDAP staff with convene with our lovely scientific advisory committee (SAC) for three days to discuss this year’s proposals. On the fourth day, we will have a fundraising event.

Fun trip to Turkey en route to London for the CORDAP annual scientific advisory committee meeting.

Never thought I’d ever find myself WANTING to go to Riyadh, but I’ve always managed to have a good time there despite its historically conservative nature.

Spent a few days in the high-mountain area of Saudi Arabia, the region of the kingdom most don’t even know exists. Mean elevation is around 2,400 m, reaching nearly 3,000 m in certain areas.

Best place for diving in Saudi??

https://oceandecade.org/events/2024-ocean-decade-conference/

CORDAP’s inaugural capacity development workshop focused on growing the capacity of the developing world to confront the climate crisis’ impact on coral reefs.

Exploring the mountains of Saudi Arabia (~1,500 m)

Characterizing the resilience of the reefs of Atauro Island and Dili, East Timor

Finally back at the home base for a spell

I will be conducted coral reef surveys near Manama, Bahrain on Sept. 22-23. These are some of the hottest reefs on the planet, and I’m excited to see what they can tell us about the limits of coral thermotolerance.

I will be conducting coral reef health surveys at reefs off the town of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia on September 15 and 16 in collaboration with Ulmuj Dive Center.

On a multi-day canoe trip in the Ozarks (Buffalo National Scenic River)

Alongside collaborators at the University of North Florida, I have been extracting RNAs, DNAs, proteins, lipids, and polar metabolites from staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) samples from a thermal stress experiment conducted at (and funded by) the Mote Marine Laboratory (“Protect our Reef” mini-grant to M. Gilg, C. Ross, & myself).

What, a cruise NOT entirely dedicated to corals and science?!

Gave a talk on my research and then extracted proteins and other macromolecules from staghorn corals featured in a series of manipulative experiments at Mote Marine Lab (FL, USA).