Research Staff

Maggie Pelton

Maggie graduated from USC in 2022 and was a previous summer research intern working with our group. After graduation, Maggie spent time working on migratory shorebirds in Alaska as well as collecting data on nekton use of oyster reef habitat from acoustic imagery. Maggie is a talented visual artist and is currently contributing to all aspects of our shrimp-focused research.

graduate students

Liam Batchelder (USC Marine Science)

 
Liam joined the lab in August 2022 as a Ph.D. student in the marine science program. Before heading to South Carolina, Liam completed a B.S in Wildlife and Fisheries from Frostburg State University and an M.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University. While in Texas, Liam studied the use of estuarine nursery habitats by early post-settlement fishes. Liam is broadly interested in marine ecology, and more specifically in estuarine habitats, nekton, juvenile fishes, and fisheries. At USC, Liam will be working as part of the team studying penaeid shrimp populations in the southeast. To do this, Liam will conduct field and laboratory studies and leverage long-term monitoring datasets to help incorporate environmental variability into ecosystem-based management of this important group of organisms.

Undergraduate students

Braddock Rhodenhiser (East Carolina University, Biology)

Braddock is a Senior in East Carolina University's Honors College studying Biology. Braddock joined our group as a North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR intern and contributed to many ongoing projects, including sampling intertidal creek fauna, salt marsh ecology, and Penaeid shrimp research. Braddock also works on fish gut dissections of a variety of species to improve our understanding of top-down control in estuaries.  

Catherine Friedline (Coastal Carolina University, Biology)

Catherine is a senior at Coastal Carolina University studying Marine Science and Applied Mathematics. Catherine has assisted on many on-going projects including Penaeid shrimp research, sampling intertidal creek fauna, and trawling for nekton in Winyah Bay. Catherine also works on landscape scale questions using stable isotope analyses in collaboration with Ryan Rezek at CCU.