Current Graduate Students

John Michael Fitzpatrick was born on Maui and grew up sailing, snorkeling, boogie boarding, fishing, kayaking, and pretty much having fun in the ocean. His love for the ocean was motivation to get a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. After he graduated he earned his captains license and captained Paragon, a 47 ft. catamaran located on Maui. Now he is back to study the population genetics of the Redlip Parrot Fish, Scarus rubroviolaceus with Dr. Dave Carlon.

Holly Jessop (PhD)
hollyjessop@yahoo.com
http://www.mare.hawaii.edu/urchins/HollyJessop.htm

During previous lives Holly was a technical writer, computer programmer, and an astrophysicist. In summer 2008 she completed a transition into the life sciences, with a master's degree in tropical conservation biology at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Her research thesis involved a study of the morphology and genetics of the diadematid Echinothrix sea urchins of Hawai'i. She is now a PhD student in the Zoology Department at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, with interests in marine biodiversity, speciation, epizootiology, and the evolutionary effects of anthropogenic stressors upon marine life.

Kim Tice (MS)
kimtice@gmail.com
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~katice/index.html

I was born and raised in Hawaii, but on a whim moved across the country to Maine after high school and received my B.A. from Bowdoin College. My interests in ecology and ornithology were sparked during my undergraduate years, and led to my senior thesis examining post-fledging parental care in Savannah Sparrows. Since graduating, I have studied raptor migration in the Goshute Mountains of Nevada, the dispersal patterns of Burrowing Owls on the Carrizo Plain in California, the basic ecology of the Long-wattled Umbrellabird in the Choco rainforest of northwestern Ecuador, and the population demographics and impacts of long-line fisheries on the Waved Albatross in the Galapagos Islands.

I entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Hawaii in the fall of 2005 as a member of Dr. David Carlon's lab to study a field of biology quite different from my background in ornithological field research. I hope to adopt a research program that incorporates modern molecular techniques and traditional experimental ecology to answer questions related to speciation and the maintenance and evolution of biodiversity. Specifically, the following questions represent areas of interest to me: What factors (divergent natural selection, sexual selection, host-shifts, reinforcement, genetic drift) trigger speciation events? What factors (environmental, genetic) cause some lineages to diverge readily while others are relatively species poor? Current barriers to gene flow may not be the same as important historical barriers; therefore, how can we determine what historical forces may have produced present day phylogenetic patterns? Because of current threats to biodiversity, I would also like to do work that has broader conservation/management implications. I am currently in the process of researching systems that might be conducive to answering these questions.