Robert S. Brewer

I earned a B.S. in biology from Concordia University, NE in 2006. While at Concordia, I developed an excitement for studying corals reefs on several tours to Belize, and decided to make coral reef ecology my career. I was drawn to the UVI Masters in Marine and Environmental Sciences program because of the chance it provided to study the reef environment year round. Tyler was my advisor during my masters tenure, and I graduated from the MMES program in May 2013. My thesis revolved around Acropora prolifera, the fecund hybrid of the threatened coral species Acropora palmata (elkhorn coral) and Acropora cervicornis (staghorn coral), specifically assessing post-settlement ecological reasons for its typical spatial distribution on reefscapes.

In Tyler's lab, I led the St. Thomas/St. John field work and data management section of the NOAA funded Acropora Monitoring and Mapping Program, which is primarily designed to assess the population demographics and general health of A. palmata in U.S. territorial waters. Our data will be combined with similar studies taking place concurrently in the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico to provide an assessment of the population trajectory of this threatened species. Currently, I manage fieldwork and data collection of the lab's Ciguatera Fish Poisoning project.