People | CREST

Find information on the faculty, staff and students of the NSF CREST-CISCEP Center.

Faculty

Principal Investigator

Paulinus Chigbu, Ph.D.
Professor and Director, CREST Center

Research Interests: Fisheries ecology, zooplankton ecology, influence of variations in climatic factors on water quality and biota, trophic dynamics in marine and freshwater environments.

Phone: (410) 621-3034
Email: pchigbu@umes.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Co-Principal Investigators

Ali Ishaque, Ph.D.
Professor

Research Interests: Identifying a single molecular biomarker that measures exposure, effect and susceptibility to carcinogens. Studying the effects of mixtures of chemical stressors (non-essential metals and stable xenobiotics) on ecosystems.

Phone: (410) 651-6050
Email: abishaque@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Salina Parveen, Ph.D.
Professor

Research interests: Food Safety, Food and Environmental Microbiology, and Water Quality.
Dr. Parveen’s research objectives are related to the improvement of safety and quality of seafood, poultry, meat and fresh produce; the application of genotypic and phenotypic methods for tracking sources of food- and water-borne pathogens in food processing plants and in aquatic environments; the development and application of rapid molecular and immunological methods for detection of water- and food-borne pathogens; the development of predictive models for the growth and survival of food-borne pathogens in seafood and poultry; and the investigation of antimicrobial resistance, pathogenicity and control of food- and water-borne pathogens.

Phone: (410) 651-8339
Email: sparveen@umes.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Margaret Sexton, Ph.D.
Assistant Research Professor of Marine Biology, CREST Center

Research Interests: Inter-annual and intra-annual variability in the abundance of the sea nettle Chrysaora quinquecirrha in Chesapeake Bay and the environmental conditions that cause this variability.

Phone: (410) 621-1049
Email: masexton@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Meng Xia, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Oceanography

Research Interests: Estuarine and coastal dynamics, specifically river plume and estuary dynamics, larval transport processes, TMDL modeling, watershed modeling, wave current dynamics and sediment transport processes.

Phone: (410) 621-3551
Email: mxia@umes.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Senior Personnel and Collaborators

Nianhong Chen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Research Interests: Application of biomarker techniques in coastal/marine biogeochemical cycle of organic matter derived from both terrestrial and aquatic origins. The goals of these studies are to understand source, fate and transport of organic matter derived from terrestrial and coastal marine origins.

Phone: (410) 651-6027
Email: nchen@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

J. Sook Chung, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UMCES IMET

Research Interests: Neuroendocrine regulation on crustacean physiology of molting, growth, reproduction, sex differentiation and stress responses.

Phone: 410-234-8841
Email: chung@umces.edu
Curriculum vitae

Shuiwang Duan, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Associate
University of Maryland College Park

Research Interests: aquatic biogeochemistry and environmental chemistry, interactive effects of land use and climate changes on water resources, sustainable restoration of urban infrastructure, elucidating changes in carbon cycles and tracking pollution sources in rivers and coastal water.

Phone: (301) 405-0334
Email: sduan@umd.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Chunlei Fan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Morgan State University

Research Interests: Aquatic microbial ecology and biogeochemistry in marine and estuarine environments with the focus on nutrients, eutrophication and Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB). Human impacts and eutrophication: monitoring the eutrophication process and HABs events on the watershed scale by using GIS/remote sensing.

Email: chunlei.fan@morgan.edu
Curriculum vitae

Maurice Crawford, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UMES

Research Interests: Estuarine habitat conservation/restoration; the dispersal and movement of organisms; and the interplay between science and policy.

Phone: 410-651-8447
Email: mkcrawford@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Ashok Deshpande, Ph.D.
NOAA / National Marine Fisheries Service / Northeast Fisheries Science Center
James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sandy Hook, New Jersey

Research Interests: The applications of principles of chemistry in NOAA Fisheries research; Potential research areas include assessment of organic contaminants and mercury in the fisheries resources and habitats, microplastics, fisheries health, behavior, habitat fidelity, migration and aggregation patterns using chemical fingerprints, trophic transfers, feeding ecology using fatty acid signatures, toxicology, and functional genomics.

Email: ashok.deshpande@noaa.gov
Phone: 732-872-3043

Patrica Ann Goslee, Ed.D.
Assistant Professor, Education Lead

Research Interests: Molding future teachers across the various disciplines to connect content to hands-on experiences in order to enhance comprehension.

Phone: 410-651-6195
Email: pagoslee@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Kenneth Kunkel, Ph.D.
Research Professor and Lead Scientist for Assessments Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites

Research Interests: Regional climate variability, extremes, change, and modeling.

Email: ken.kunkel@noaa.gov
Phone: (828) 257-3137
Biosketch

Eric May, Ph.D.
Professor

Research Interests: The use of biochemical and metabolic indicators to determine the response of fish to injurious agents or conditions; establishment of clinical methods as a means of non-lethal testing of wild and cultured stocks. Development of programs related to determining the effect of environmental damage on resident aquatic organisms; application of fish health management approaches for use in aquaculture and wild stocks.

Phone: (410) 651-8342
Email: ebmay@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Ejiroghene Mayor, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Biology, Ecology and Life history of macroinvertebrate and fish; Population dynamics of species, focusing on the influence of environmental factors. Feeding habits and trophic interactions between macroinvertebrate and fish in aquatic systems.

Email: edmayor@umes.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Joseph Montoya, Ph.D.
Professor, Georgia Tech

Research Interests: Biological oceanography: the nitrogen cycle in pelagic ecosystems, isotope biogeochemistry, nitrogen fixation, denitrification, inorganic N uptake, N excretion, plankton physiology

Phone: 404-385-0479
Email: montoya@gatech.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Andrés G. Morales-Núñez, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor

Research Interests: Taxonomy, higher level systematics (Tanaidacea, Ostracoda, Caprellidae, and Polychaeta). Biodiversity, ecology, and distribution of benthic marine invertebrates.

Phone: 410-621-2996
Email: agmorales@umes.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Joseph Pitula, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Research Interests: Protistan biology, particularly of parasitic species; more specifically, the ecology of disease transmission, host-parasite interactions, protist metabolism, and protist gene expression

Phone: (410) 651-6666
Email: jspitula@umes.edu
Curriculum vitae

Staff

Paulinus Chigbu, Ph.D.
Director NSF CREST-CISCEP
Ph: (410) 621-3034
Fax: (410) 651-7869
pchigbu@umes.edu

Chris Daniels
Research Vessel Captain and Field Technician
cdaniels1@umes.edu

Ligia DaSilva, Ph.D.
CREST-CISCEP Program Coordinator
Ph: (410) 651-6013
Fax: (410) 651-7869
lvdasilva@umes.edu

Anne Dudley
Communication and Outreach Specialist
Ph: (410)-651-6196
acdudley@umes.edu

Maggie Sexton, Ph.D.
Ph: (410) 621-1049
Fax: (410) 651-7869
masexton@umes.edu

Onjalé Scott
Ph: (410) 621-2270
Fax: (410) 651-7869
obscott@umes.edu

Students

Master’s Students

Detbra Rosales

Detbra graduated from Binghamton University with her BS degree in Environmental Studies in 2010. She also attended Brooklyn College and received a M.A. degree in Biology in 2012, after which she enrolled at UMES. She works with Dr. Joseph Pitula on a project that is examining the effects of environmental factors on Hematodinium sp., a dinoflagellate parasite of Blue Crabs.