Instructor Bios

Dr. Rita Horner

Dr. Rita Horner, has 50 years experience studying phytoplankton in polar and temperate regions with nearly 30 years experience with HABs, especially on the U.S. west coast. Her early research focused on Chaetoceros spp. and Heterosigma akashiwo and their effects on salmon at aquaculture sites in Puget Sound. When domoic acid was found on the west coast, she was the first to identify toxic and potentially toxic Pseudo-nitzschia species, e.g., P. australis, P. pungens, and other species, in western Washington waters. She has taught HAB phytoplankton identification courses in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, California Department of Health Services, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and local Sea Grant programs. She was one of the founders of the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB) project, a western Washington HAB monitoring program that has been in operation since 1998, and taught algal taxonomy to the original project technicians. Rita is now retired from her long-time position as a research scientist in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington, but is still active in phytoplankton research.

Dr. Karen Steidinger

Dr. Karen A. Steidinger is a marine dinoflagellate specialist who has worked on estuarine to oceanic phytoplankton for fifty years, starting out with Gulf of Mexico species. One of her first publications was a photographic guide to the dinoflagellates of the Hourglass Cruises. Since then she has published over 100 papers on dinoflagellate systematics, biology, and ecology, concentrating on harmful algal species. She received her Ph.D. in Biology in 1979 from the University of South Florida and her thesis was on the ultrastructure and ultrastructural variability of a toxic dinoflagellate. She has worked as a laboratory technician up to a senior research scientist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s research laboratory and today Karen work’s part-time at the same institution. She also is a Courtesy Professor in the College of Marine Science, University of South Florida. Karen has been associated with many phytoplankton or harmful algae identification workshops and training courses, including 7 of the Advanced Phytoplankton Courses held in Norway (University of Oslo) or Italy (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli) between 1983-2015, two of the International Phytoplankton Identification Workshops held at the Marine Biological Association in England (2012, 2014), four of the Harmful Algal Bloom Taxonomy Training Workshops held in Mexico (2009, 2011), and over 10 harmful algae identification workshops held around the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida. She is currently putting together a “Guide to the Identification of Harmful Microalgae of the Gulf of Mexico” that will cover dinoflagellates, diatoms, and flagellates and portions will be available by the course date in draft form.

Dr. Carmelo Tomas

A graduate of advanced programs at the University of Rhode Island with a MS in Botany and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences and extensive experience at the Graduate School of Oceanography where he served as staff and post doctoral researcher. Over 40 years of experience in teaching, field studies and laboratory work with marine phytoplankton concentrating mainly on HAB species. Teaching includes international workshops on phytoplankton identification and taxonomy held in Norway, Denmark, Italy, U.K. Mexico and U.S. Field experience includes work in the Sargasso Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea as well as most recent (17 year) work in coastal mid Atlantic states. In depth studies on Raphidophytes, their taxonomy, ecology and toxicity. Presently is Professor Emeritus and Adjunct to the Department of Biological Sciences and is a principal of the marine biotechnology program at MARBIONC, University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Dr. Celia Villac

Célia Villac is a Research Scientist at the Harmful Algal Group at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg, Florida. She received her PhD in Oceanography from Texas A&M University and has completed post-doctorate appointments in research institutions in Brazil and Canada. With over 30 years of experience in research and teaching marine phytoplankton, she has lectured on phytoplankton taxonomy and ecology to undergraduate and graduate level courses as well as to international workshops in Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. She is familiar with phytoplankton assemblages from diverse coastal environments, from subtropical (Atlantic South America) to temperate (Pacific North America). Célia is interested in species-oriented processes in association with likely environmental controlling factors. Understanding the phytoplankton population dynamics of a given region may become a powerful predictive tool, a key component in HAB-event response.

Dr. Michael Parsons

Dr. Parsons is a Professor of Marine Science at Florida Gulf Coast University and Director of the Coastal Watershed Institute and Vester Field Station. He was a State of Louisiana Board of Regents Fellow and received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1996 in Biological Oceanography. He received the Outstanding Mentor award from the University of Hawaii-Hilo in 2001 and the Senior Faculty Scholarship Excellence Award at Florida Gulf Coast University in Spring 2013. Parsons has built a successful research career, receiving over $15 million of extramural funding to study ciguatera fish poisoning, harmful algal blooms, coral reef ecology, and phytoplankton ecology. He is also a collaborator in two Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Consortia studying the impacts of the Macondo oil spill on coastal ecosystems in multi-year projects worth over $30 million. His 40+ peer-reviewed publications have been cited over 2000 times in the scientific literature. Parsons uses his research program to mentor undergraduate and graduate students in aspects of coastal ecosystem health. He also teaches several courses in marine ecology and data collection and analysis. As Director of the Coastal Watershed Institute and the Vester Field Station, Parsons continually pursues new avenues for student involvement and community outreach in both research and educational activities. His ultimate goal is to educate students and the public in the field of coastal ecology, particularly in terms of how human activities impact ecosystem health, as well as how these impacts in turn influence human health and well-being.

Dr. Ian Probert

[under construction]

Dr. Mike Lomas

Dr. Michael W. Lomas has studied marine phytoplankton ecology and physiology for nearly 20 years. This research has ranged from the nutritional ecology of HABS in shallow coastal bays, to the role of marine phytoplankton diversity plays in controlling global biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. Lomas' earliest research was working in Dr. Donald Anderson's laboratory to document the spatial distribution of the HAB species Alexandrium tamarense in the Gulf of Maine, which was followed by work with Dr. Paul Falkowski's group studying the molecular response of photoacclimation in phytoplankton. Lomas' PhD research focused on the intracellular physiology of nitrate cycling and how it differed between diatoms and flagellates in response to variable cellular energy levels, for which he received his PhD in 1999. Following this work, he worked with the brown tide organism Aureococcus anophagefferens studying the nutritional and ecosystem attributes that might lead to its dominance in shallow coastal bays along the US east coast. After working in this field for several years, Lomas' took a position at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (formerly Bermuda Biological Station for Research) where he was the lead PI for the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) where he developed a robust phytoplankton component within the time-series. While he continues this research, Lomas moved to Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in 2012 and took over at Director of NCMA in 2014.

Dr. Cynthia Heil

Cynthia Heil is a Senior Research Scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor Maine where her research focuses on harmful algae, nutrients and water quality, including the role of toxins in marine ecosystem and management and mitigation of HABs. She received an MS in Marine Science from the University of South Florida and a PhD from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and her thesis research focused on both the behavioral and nutrition of a variety of HAB species. Prior to her Bigelow appointment she served as the HAB Group Leader at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg, Florida where she managed a staff of 25 people responsible for conducting research on and monitoring harmful algal blooms for the state of Florida. During her post-doctorate appointments (University of Queensland, Australia and University of South Florida) she worked on the development of new methods using marine plants to assess water quality and determined the biological, chemical and physical factors responsible for Florida’s annual red tides. She has had experience with both the science and management of marine and freshwater HAB species and water quality both within the U.S. and internationally and has worked in diverse subtropical, tropical and temperate coastal environments, including coral reefs. She has over 90 peer reviewed publications.