Shayle Matsuda

Position

Alumni

Biography

Shayle Matsuda is a David H Smith Conservation Research Postdoctoral Fellow at the John G Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, IL. He completed his PhD  at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology and the University of Hawai'i Mānoa where his research worked to understand how future climate conditions will impact reef-building corals and to develop creative and innovative solutions to aid in their survival. He is particularly interested in the intersection of technology and biology for creative problem solving in research and education, a passion which he developed during his MSc at the California Academy of Sciences and San Francisco State University. When not in the lab, Shayle is an avid science communicator and advocate for diversity in science. He frequently speaks about his experiences as an LGBTQ+ graduate student in STEM. Previously in San Francisco, he created and hosted the popular science happy hour series, Science, Neat, and has presented on the Story Collider podcast, at Nerd Nite, NASA FameLab, and the California Academy of Sciences’ Earth Update in the Morrison Planetarium. Shayle demonstrates his passion for helping others develop their #scicomm voice through his Sketchnotes Workshops, and as a member of the Leadership Team at ComSciCon, the National Communicating Science Workshop for STEM graduate students. To see his live watercolor sketchnotes or to connect, find him on Twitter @wrong_whale.

Research Interests

I use technology and biology in my research to understand what will happen to corals under future climate conditions and to develop solutions to help them survive into the future. My work centers around coral symbioses – the complex partnerships between corals and the algae and bacteria that live within their tissues. I use 3D-imaging and DNA sequencing to map microenvironments within colonies with symbionts and stress responses, and am currently investigating the prospect of increasing thermal tolerance by forming new symbioses with more thermally tolerant symbionts.

Education

Ph.D. University of Hawaii Mānoa and the Hawai`i Institute of Marine Biology, Marine Biology (2021); M.S. San Francisco State University and the California Academy of Sciences: Biology - Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology (2015). B.A. University of California Santa Cruz, double major: Environmental Studies and Feminist Studies (2003).

Publications

1. Matsuda S, Chakravarti L, Cunning R, Huffmyer A, Nelson CE, Gates, RD, van Oppen MJH. (2022). Temperature-mediated acquisition of rare heterologous symbionts promotes survival of coral larvae under ocean warming. Global Change Biology. 28(6), 2006-2025.

2. Alexander G, Hancock J, Huffmyer AS, and SB Matsuda. (2022). Larval thermal conditioning does not improve post-settlement thermal tolerance in a dominant reef-building coral, Montipora capitata. Coral Reefs. doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02234-x

3. Ahmadia GN, Cheng SH, Andradi-Brown DA, Baez SK, Barnes MD, Bennett NJ,…Masuda SB… et al. (2021). Limited progress in improving gender and geographic representation in coral reef science. Front. Mar Sci. 8. doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.731037

4. Kelly LW, Nelson CE, Aluwihare LI, Arts MGI, Dorrestein PC, Koester I, Matsuda SB, Petras D, Quinlan ZA and Haas AF (2021). Molecular Commerce on Coral Reefs: Using Metabolomics to Reveal Biochemical Exchanges Underlying Holobiont Biology and the Ecology of Coastal Ecosystems. Front. Mar. Sci. 8:630799. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.630799

5. Barott KL, Huffmyer AS, Davidson JM, Lenz EA, Matsuda SB, Hancock JR, et al. (2021). Coral bleaching response is unaltered following acclimatization to reefs with distinct environmental conditions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021;118. doi:10.1073/pnas.2025435118

6. Matsuda S, Huffmyer A, Lenz E, Davidson J, Hancock J, Przybylowski A, Innis T, Gates R, Barott K. Coral Bleaching Susceptibility Is Predictive of Subsequent Mortality Within but Not Between Coral Species. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 2020 June 12; 8. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fevo.2020.00178/full DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2020.00178

7. Canfield K, Menezes S, Matsuda S, Moore A, Mosley Austin A, Dewsbury B, Feliú-Mójer M, McDuffie K, Moore K, Reich C, Smith H, Taylor C. Science Communication Demands a Critical Approach That Centers Inclusion, Equity, and Intersectionality. Frontiers in Communication. 2020 January 30; 5. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00002/full DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2020.00002

8. Huffmyer AS, Matsuda SB, Eggers AR, Lemus JD, Gates RD. Evaluation of laser scanning confocal microscopy as a method for characterizing reef-building coral tissue thickness and Symbiodiniaceae fluorescence. J Exp Biol. 2020 Mar 18;223(Pt 6)PubMed PMID: 32098888.

9. Hancock, J. R., A. R. Barrows, T. C. Roome, A. S. Huffmyer, S. B. Matsuda, N. J. Munk, S. A. Rahnke, and C. Drury. 2021. “Coral Husbandry for Ocean Futures: Leveraging Abiotic Factors to Increase Survivorship, Growth, and Resilience in Juvenile Montipora capitata.” Marine Ecology Progress Series 657 (January): 123–33. 10.3354/meps13534

10. Roach TNF, Yadava S, Caruso C, Dilworth J, Foley CM, Hancock J, Huckeba J, Huffmyer AS, Hughes K, Kahkejian VA, Madin E, Matsuda, S, McWilliam M, Miller S, Rocha de Souza M, Torres-Pullizaa D, Drury C and J Madin. (2021). A Field Primer for Monitoring Benthic Ecosystems using Structure-from-Motion Photogrammetry. J Vis Exp. 2021. doi:10.3791/61815

11. Matsuda, S.B. and Gosliner, T.M. (2018). Glossing over cryptic species: Descriptions of four new species of Glossodoris and three new species of Doriprismatica (Nudibranchia: Chromodorididae). Zootaxa, 4444(5), 501–529. 

12. Matsuda, S. B., & Gosliner, T. M. (2017). Molecular phylogeny of Glossodoris (Ehrenberg, 1831) nudibranchs and related genera reveals cryptic and pseudocryptic species complexes. Cladistics, 1–16.