Tori is a Masters student in the Three Seas Program at Northeastern University. Through this program, she has gotten the opportunity to study in three distinct ecosystems, the Atlantic coast of Nahant, Massachusetts, the rocky shoreline and kelp forests of Friday Harbor, Washington, and the tropical habitats of Bocas del Toro, Panama. During her undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina Beaufort she worked in Dr. Kim Ritchie’s lab studying the use of beneficial bacteria as a proxy for the health and resilience of corals before, during and after a Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease outbreak in the Florida Keys Reef Tract. Specifically, she measured the antibiotic-producing potential in bacteria associated with 3 coral species against a range of coral and marine pathogens. This research was critical for identifying potential candidates for coral probiotics. She also embarked on OCEARCH’s Carolina Expedition to study beneficial bacteria on the surfaces of white sharks to assess the role they may play in wound healing. Tori is currently an AAUS Scientific Diver and interested in coral reef restoration, coral/algal interaction, larval settlement, and their defense mechanisms.
Tori Sember
