22 May 2025: Carrier gave a seminar for the Department of Symbiosis at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (Germany).
19 May 2025: Carrier gave a seminar for the Center for Organismal Adaptation at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
15 May 2025: Carrier presented at a symposium on the Cellular Underpinnings in Host-Microbe Crosstalk hosted by CRC 1182.
17 April 2025: Carrier is awarded a subsidy for a short-term stay in Germany from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. This stay combines presenting at a conference, a lecture tour, and a working visit (i.e., learning a new technique for an on-going project). Auf nach Deutschland!
11 March 2025: Carrier in collaboration with Matt Kustra (UC Berkeley) publish a paper entitled, "Microbes as manipulators of egg size and developmental evolution" in mBio.
4 March 2025: Carrier in collaboration with Holland Elder (Australian Institute of Marine Science), Jason Macrander (Florida Southern College), James Dimond and Brian Bingham (Western Washington University), and Adam Reitzel (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) publish a paper entitled, "Symbiont-mediated metabolic shift in the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima" in Molecular Ecology.
15 October 2024: Carrier travels to Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) to conduct experiments for an on-going project.
4 August 2024: Carrier attends the Telling Stories Through Data workshop that was hosted by Holly Bik (University of Georgia) in Savannah, GA.
25 July 2024: Funding approved from NC Sea Grant to study whether, and how, Rickettsiales influence the blue economy of North Carolina. This is part of a collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte, USA), Rafael Vieira (UNC Charlotte, USA), and Tal Ben-Horin (North Carolina State University, USA).
5 May 2024: Paper on the "Divergence between sea urchins and their microbiota following speciation" is published in Marine Biology! This is part of a collaboration with Guillaume Schwob (University of Chile, Chile), Remi Ketchum (University of North Carolina, USA), Harilaos Lessios (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama), and Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte, USA).
1 January 2024: Carrier relocates back to the US after 3.5 years in Germany to take a position in the Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks (CIPHER) at UNC Charlotte. He will continue to be an Associated Researcher at the CRC 1182 and will take a Visiting Scientist position at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research.
15 September 2023: Andrés and Carrier complete an extensive field campaign at the Marine Observatory of Climate Change in La Palma, Spain.
24 July 2023: Congratulations to Andrés Rufino Navarro for sucessfully defending his Master's thesis!
1 April 2023: Carrier in collaboration with Lara Schmittmann (GEOMAR), Lucia Pita (Instituto de Ciencias del Mar), and Ute Hentschel (GEOMAR) publish a paper entitled, "Maternal provisioning of an obligate symbiont in a sponge" in Ecology and Evolution.
26 October 2022: Carrier receives the Young Investigator Award from the CRC 1182 to explore how an obligate symbiont primes host development.
1 August 2022: Carrier in collaboration with Gary Wessel (Brown Univ.), Masato Kiyomoto (Ochanomizu Univ.), and Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish a paper entitled, "Pigmentation biosynthesis influences the microbiome in sea urchins" in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
31 May 2022: Rocío Pérez Portela's (University of Barcelona) proposal on the "Genetic adaptability of marine species in natural gradients analogous to the oceans of the future" was funded by the BBVA. Very excitied to be part of this 'DIVERGEN" project.
30 May 2022: Carrier in collaboration with Thomas Bosch (Univ. Kiel) publish a paper entitled "Symbiosis: the other cells in development" in Development.
25 March 2022: Carrier in collaboration with Manuel Maldonado (Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Blanes), Lara Schmittmann (GEOMAR), Lucia Pita (Instituto de Ciencias del Mar), Thomas Bosch (Univ. Kiel) and Ute Hentschel (GEOMAR) publish a paper entitled, "Symbiont transmission in marine sponges: reproduction, development, and metamorphosis" in BMC Biology.
21 February 2022: Carrier recieved funding for a European Research Stay from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to collaborate with Dr. Ana Riesgo at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
15 February 2022: Carrier gave a MicroSeminar, the web-based microbiology seminar series hosted by the Early Career Scientist Committee of ISME, on life-history evolution and microbes that manipulate reproduction in marine invertebrates.
11 February 2022: Carrier in collaboration with Matt Kustra (UC Santa Cruz) publish a paper entitled, "On the spread of microbes that manipulate reproduction in marine invertebrates" in the American Naturalist.
5 November 2021: Carrier in collaboration with Justin McAlister (College of the Holy Cross) publish a paper entitled, "Microbiota associated with echinoid eggs and the implications for maternal provisioning" in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
25 June 2021: Carrier is awarded the Graduate Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award from UNC Charlotte.
1 June 2021: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) as well as Stace Beaulieu, Susan Mills, and Lauren Mullineaux (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) publish a paper entitled, "Larvae of deep-sea marine invertebrates harbor low-diversity bacterial communities" in Biological Bulletin as part of a virtual Symposium issue on the "Adaptive and plastic responses to environmental variation."
15 March 2021: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte), Brittany Leigh and Seth Bordenstein (Vanderbilt University), Maria Byrne and Dione Deaker (University of Sydney), and Greg Wray and Hannah Devens (Duke University) publish a paper entitled, "Microbiome reduction and endosymbiont gain from a switch in sea urchin life-history" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
8 January 2021: Carrier receives travel fellowship from the CRC 1182 to attend the Animal-Microbe Symbioses GCR on "Recent Advances in Evolutionary and Functional Analyses of Symbiotic Interactions" that will take place from 18-23 June 2023 in Lucca, Italy.
14 July 2020: Carrier in collaboration with Harris Lessios and Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Eggs of echinoids separated by the Isthmus of Panama harbor divergent microbiota" in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
19 March 2020: Carrier is awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers to work with Ute and Thomas at GEOMAR and the CRC-1182 at Kiel University. Next stop: Kiel, Germany.
14 January 2020: Carrier successfully defends his dissertation! Dr. Carrier, it is!
17 December 2019: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Symbiotic life of echinoderm larvae" in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
9 December 2019: Carrier in collaboration with the Rast and Heyland labs publish paper entitled, "Bacterial exposure mediates developmental plasticity and resistance to lethal Vibrio lentus infection in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) larvae" in Frontiers in Immunology.
22 October 2019: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Shift in bacterial taxa precedes morphological plasticity in a larval echinoid" in Marine Biology.
20 October 2019: Carrier is in Kiel (Germany) for the week and will give seminars on the symbiotic life of echinoderm larvae at GEOMAR and the CRC-1182 at Kiel University. Thank you for the having me, Ute and Thomas.
13 August 2019: Carrier gives seminar on the microbiota of echinoid larvae during phenotypic plasticity at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama City, Panama).
22 July 2019: Carrier in collaboration with Whitney Leach and Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Diel patterning in the bacterial community associated with Nematostella vectensis" in Ecology and Evolution.
11 July 2019: Carrier heads off to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama City, Panama) for ten weeks of field experiments.
21 June 2019: Carrier in collaboration with Sam Dupont (Univ. Gothenburg, Sweden) and Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Geographic location and food availability offer differing levels of influence on the the bacterial communities associated with larval sea urchins" in FEMS Microbiology Ecology.
16 June 2019: Carrier departs for Vermont to attend the Animal-Microbe Symbioses GCR, where he will present a poster entitled, "Symbiosis across diet-induced phenotypes: insights from larval sea urchins."
4 April 2019: Carrier departs for four weeks of field work at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.
3 April 2019: Carrier is awarded the Smithsonian Institution graduate student fellowship to study coevolution between echinoid larvae and their microbes at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution in Panama City, Panama with Harilaos Lessios.
22 March 2019: Carrier is awarded a graduate student fellowship from the Friday Harbor Laboratories to study bacterial colonization on echinoid eggs. Super excited to be back at the Labs.
18 January 2019: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Bacterial community dynamics during embryonic and larval development of three confamilial echinoids" in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
7 November 2018: Carrier makes his way to Boston (MA) to participate in 'All Hand on Deck,' the national ocean exploration forum hosted by the MIT Media Lab.
17 October 2018: Carrier heads back off to the Marine Biological Laboratory. This time he is talking at Developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin XXV that is titled, "Echinoid development and the bacterial community: a dynamic yet selective process."
6 September 2018: Carrier in collaboration with the laboratories of Maria Byrne (Univ. Sydney, Australia) and Dan Janies (UNC Charlotte) as well as Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled "Diet-induced shifts in the crown-of-thorns (Acanthaster sp.) larval microbiome" in Marine Biology.
4 September 2018: Carrier becomes an Ocean Exploration Fellow at the MIT Media Lab to join All Hands On Deck, the 2018 Ocean Exploration Forum.
29 July 2018: Carrier docks at the Marine Biological Laboratory for Strategies and Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures.
6 July 2018: Carrier in collaboration with Remi Ketchum and Adam Reitzel (both UNC Charlotte) as well as Edward Smith and John Burt's laboratory (all NYU Abu Dhabi) publish paper entitled, "DNA extraction method plays a significant role when defining bacterial community composition in the marine invertebrate Echinometra mathaei" in Frontiers in Marine Science.
11 June 2018: Carrier finds himself back at the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Infrastructure in Fiskebackskil, Sweden, this time for six weeks to culture sea urchin and brittle star larvae.
8 June 2018: Carrier presents poster at ASM Microbe 2018 entitled "Convergent shifts in host-associated microbial communities across environmentally elicited phenotype" in Atlanta (GA, USA).
28 February 2018: Carrier ventures to Sydney, Australia to begin two months of field-based experiments testing if the microbiome contributes to life-history transitions.
30 January 2018: Carrier in collaboration with Jason Macrander and Adam Reitzel (both UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "A microbial perspective on the life-history evolution of marine invertebrate larvae: if, where, and when to feed," in Marine Ecology.
25 January 2018: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper entitled, "Convergent shifts in host-associated microbial communities across environmentally elicited phenotypes" in Nature Communications.
16 January 2018: Carrier is awarded a grant from The KVA Fund to conduct field work at the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Infrastructure (Fiskebackskil, Sweden) to test whether oceanographic conditions are a selective pressure on the microbial dynamics of echinoderm larvae.
9 December 2017: Carrier attends the DeSSC New-User Program workshop and annual meeting hosted by UNOLS In New Orleans (LA; USA).
4 December 2017: Carrier, Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte), and Andreas Heyland (Univ. Guelph, Canada) publish edited volume entitled, Evolutionary Ecology of Marine Invertebrate Larvae.
7 October 2017: Carrier receives funds from UNOLS to travel to and attend the 2017 DeSSC New-User Program workshop in New Orleans (LA, USA).
5 September 2017: Carrier heads to the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Infrastructure in Fiskebackskil, Sweden.
10 August 2017: Carrier heads to the XIth International Larval Biology Symposium to give a talk entitled, "Evolution of phenotypic plasticity in echinoid larvae: what about the microbiome?" and a poster entitled, "Death by dysbiosis: the microbial component of larval mortality in the plankton."
9 July 2017: Off to the field! Spending 3.5 weeks at the Duke University Marine Laboratory, conducting experiments with Lytechinus variegatus larvae.
23 May 2017: Carrier gives seminar on the dynamics between echinoid larvae and their associated microbiota to the Bordenstein Lab at Vanderbilt University.
10 May 2017: Carrier is awarded a Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide grant from NSF to study the role of the microbiome in life-history transitions. Doing so, he will be using the Heliocidaris system in the laboratory of Dr. Maria Byrne (Univ. Sydney).
18 April 2017: Carrier in collaboration with Adam Reitzel (UNC Charlotte) publish paper in Frontiers in Microbiology entitled, "The hologenome across environments and the implications of a host-associated microbial repertoire."
21 March 2017: Carrier in collaboration with Kevin Du Clos (Univ. of Southern Florida), Ian Jones (MIT/WHOI), Damian Brady (Univ. of Maine), and Pete Jumars (Univ. of Maine) publish paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology entitled, "Model-assisted measurements of suspension-feeding flow velocities."
24 February 2017: New Student Spotlight story written by UNC Charlotte on my research.
16 August 2016: Carrier in collaboration with Gary Wessel and members of his lab (Nathalie Oulhen, Vanesa Zzueta-Novoa, Tara Fresques, and Jessica Laird; Brown Univ.), Andreas Heyland (Univ. Guelph, Canada), Thomas Onorato (LaGuardia Community College/CUNY), and Daniel Janies (UNC Charlotte) publish paper in Mechanisms of Development entitled, "Regeneration in bipinnaria larvae of the bat star Patiria miniata induces rapid and broad gene expression."
22 June 2016: Carrier in collaboration with Steve Eddy (CCAR) and Sarah Redmond (Maine Sea Grant) publish paper in Aquaculture International entitled, “Solar-dried kelp as potential feed in sea urchin aquaculture.”
29 April 2016: Carrier is on the road to the Friday Harbor Labs to conduct studies on larval-microbe interactions.
22 April 2016: Carrier in collaboration with Nathalie Oulhen (Brown Univ.) and Barbara Schulz (Univ. Braunschweig, Germany) publish paper in Symbiosis entitled, "English translation of Heinrich Anton de Bary’s 1878 speech, ‘Die Erscheinung der Symbiose’ (‘De la symbiose’)."
7 April 2016: Carrier's presents posted entitled, 'Resistance of echinoid larvae to starvation and harmful algae: may larval evolution be shaped by phytoplankton dynamics?' at the NC Sea Grant Graduate Training Symposium.
4 April 2016: Carrier was awarded the Wayland H. Cato Endowment Fellowship.
29 March 2016: Carrier was awarded the NSF graduate research fellowship.
14 March 2016: Carrier has received funds from the Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) to conduct 11 weeks of larval-microbe research at FHL this summer.
9 March 2016: Carrier has receives funds from North Carolina (NOAA) Sea Grant to attend and present research at the NC Sea Grant-sponsered Graduate Training Symposium on the April 6th and 7th in New Bern, NC.
1 March 2016: Carrier switches into the Ph.D. track at UNCC, remaining in the Reitzel Lab.
22 February 2016: Carrier and Reitzel (co-PIs) awarded mini-grant from the North Carolina (NOAA) Sea Grant to study the microbiome of Lytechinus variegates larvae.
3-7 January 2016: Carrier presents poster titled, 'Resistance of echinoid larvae to starvation and harmful algae: may larval evolution be shaped by phytoplankton dynamics?', at the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in Portland, OR.
24 December 2015: Carrier was awarded Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid Research grant to study the microbiome of Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis larvae.
1 December 2015: Carrier was awarded funds from UNCC's Graduate & Professional Student Government to attend and present at SICB 2016 in Portland, OR.
25 November 2015: Carrier was featured in The Charlotte Observer as part of article on Visualizing Science Art Show at UNCC's Atkins Library.
20 November 2015: Three of Carrier's photos in the Visualizing Science Art Show at UNCC tied for first place in the library's vote for best description; another photo won first place in the popular vote.
10 November 2015: Carrier awarded NSF BIO REU travel grant to attend and present at SICB 2016 in Portland, OR.
7-11 October 2015: Carrier presents two posters and gives talk at the Developmental Biology of Sea Urchins XXIII in Woods Hole, MA. What fantastic group of "urchin-ologists."
20 August 2015: Carrier arrives in Charlotte, NC to begin his graduate studies.
1 June 2015: Carrier joins the laboratory of Gary Wessel at Brown University as a visiting research scholar to study regeneration by asteroid larvae.
9 May 2015: Carrier graduates from the University of Maine. Onto graduate school!
30 April 2015: Carrier successfully defends Honors thesis titled, "Influence of saxitoxins and Alexandrium fundyense on embryos and late stage larvae of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis."
9 April 2015: Carrier, Benjamin King (MDI Biological Laboratory), and James Coffman (MDI Biological Laboratory) publish paper in Biological Bulletin entitled, "Gene expression changes associated with the developmental plasticity of sea urchin larvae in response to food availability."
11 March 2015: Carrier joins Adam Reitzel's Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a Master's student.