NOAA-EPP LMRCSC Undergraduate Fellow
B.S., Environmental Science
Hampton University
Danyta Lamadieu is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Marine and Environmental Science at Hampton University. Previously, she attended the College of Charleston in South Carolina, majoring in Marine Biology, before transferring to Hampton.
In the summer of 2025, she participated in an internship through the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Gump Station in Mo’orea, French Polynesia, under Dr. Paul Barber, Dr. Peggy Fong, and Dr. Alex Davis. Her group’s research focused on how anthropogenic debris impacted the behavior of Dusky Gregory Damselfish (Stagastes nigricans). Danyta is scheduled to present her summer research at the Western Society of Naturalists conference in San Diego, California in November 2025, and at the Association of Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography’s (ASLO) Ocean Science conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2026.
She joined the NOAA LMRCSC on Oct. 3, 2025, working under Dr. Joe Reustle to investigate how the diets of mud crabs (Panopeus herbstii) and blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) change ontogenetically and across warming temperatures by building and maintaining over 30 mesocosm tanks. The tanks allow crabs to free forage on live prey, including red-beard sponge, eastern oysters, periwinkle snails, flatback mud crabs, and macroalgae. The experiment will investigate how abiotic factors affect the dietary functional roles in an estuarine food web.
Danyta plans to continue pursuing applied research opportunities to understand how species interactions impact healthy ecosystems, how they are changing in unhealthy ecosystems, and what human or abiotic factors are causing these shifts. She hopes to find solutions to conservation issues and create plans to rehabilitate marine environments.
Research theme: Healthy Habitats
NOAA LMRCSC Fellows attain the NOAA Core Competencies detailed in this rubric.
Academic Advisors: Dr. Joseph Reustle
NOAA Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center
University of Maryland Eastern Shore (Lead Institution)
(410) 651-7870
Award numbers: FY 2021 Award #NA21SEC4810005
Funding Agency: NOAA Educational Partnership Program (EPP/MSI)
