Meet Our Team
Principal Investigator
Ron Baker
Assistant Professor
School of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of South Alabama
Senior Research Scientist I, Dauphin Island Sea Lab
Ron’s research focuses on the functioning of estuarine and coastal ecosystems, particularly their role as nurseries for ecologically and socially important species. Ron’s interests include fish-habitat relationships, food web functioning, drivers of population and community change, and the responses of communities to coastal restoration.
After completing his Bachelors and Ph.D. at James Cook University in Townsville Australia, Ron undertook post-doctoral positions at NOAA Fisheries in Galveston Texas, working with Tom Minello, and with Candy Feller at the Smithsonian, based in Fort Pierce, Florida. He joined the faculty of USA and DISL in the Fall of 2018. Ron currently teaches undergraduate Marine Vertebrate Zoology during the summer sessions at DISL, and graduate classes including Quantitative Methods in Fisheries and Ecology, and Coastal Fisheries Ecology.
Lab Manager
Alex Rodriguez
Baker Lab Manager
Alex became the Baker lab manager in 2021. Alex is the project manager for the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines project and is a PI on several other living shoreline monitoring projects, including Graveline Bay on Dauphin Island and Project Greenshores in Pensacola. Alex is a marine ecologist with broad research interests related to interspecies interactions within habitats such as seagrasses, saltmarsh vegetation, and oyster reefs. Alex believes that critical research not only addresses fundamental ecological questions but also directly helps manage and conserve species and ecosystems in a rapidly changing ocean. She is particularly excited about assessing novel approaches for conserving, restoring, and monitoring coastal habitats and their ecosystem services in developed coastal areas. Alex earned her M.S. at the University of South Alabama in 2018 by studying the effects herbivorous green turtles have on seagrasses as sea turtle ranges expand into the northern Gulf of Mexico. As an undergraduate at Florida Gulf Coast University, Alex interned in a Benthic Ecology lab and conducted her senior research project on seagrass feeding preferences of the invasive apple snail, and graduated in 2015.
Ph.D. Students
Sarah Ramsden
Sarah is a Ph.D. student who started in spring of 2019. She is currently using acoustic telemetry combined with gut content and stable isotope analysis to study how sportfish use different habitats around restored shorelines as they age and grow. Sarah considers herself a movement ecologist, studying where animals go, when and why, and has aspirations to expand her knowledge of animal habitat selection in anthropogenically impacted habitats into terrestrial research. Sarah is also enthusiastic about outreach and enjoys teaching and taking on field research trips students of all ages. She received her M.S. in Marine Sciences from Savannah State University in 2015, where she used acoustic telemetry to track seasonal changes in habitat use by Atlantic stingrays. Sarah received her B.S. in Environmental Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013, where she studied catfish sound production.
Hannah Ehrmann
Hannah Ehrmann is a Ph.D. student who started in fall of 2020 and works on the NOAA RESTORE-funded Oyster/Blue Crab/Sea Trout project. Her dissertation research focuses on identifying environmental drivers of nekton community dynamics and of growth and production of key fisheries species in Alabama coastal waters. This research will also create predictive models of growth and production for each species to examine population dynamics under future climate scenarios. Hannah's focus is on applied research aiding fisheries and coastal management, and studying links between anthropogenically impacted environmental conditions, community dynamics, and population dynamics. Before starting her Ph.D. Hannah worked at the Harte Research Institute for three years after receiving her M.S. in Environmental Science from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi in 2017 studying the effects of small changes in freshwater inflow on benthic communities and estuarine health. She has also worked as an invertebrate field technician at New Jersey Audubon and interned at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in 2015. Hannah received her B.S. in Environmental Studies from Gettysburg College in 2014.
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Aaron Bland
Aaron started his Ph.D. with the Baker lab in August 2021 working on the RESTORE Alabama Living Shorelines Project. His research interests focus on characterizing environmental drivers of marine communities experiencing changing conditions. In the Baker Lab, Aaron is working on a dissertation that evaluates various ecological responses to Living Shoreline restoration. Aaron is developing improved methods to monitor shoreline change, and is working to measure shoreline change at Alabama living shoreline sites. He is also designing an experiment to monitor barriers to oyster reef development at living shorelines, and is evaluating the impacts of living shoreline restoration on macrofauna. Aaron earned a B.S. in Biology at the College of William and Mary in 2016, and a M.S. in Marine Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2018. Aaron has worked on multiple prior research projects including water quality monitoring at oyster aquaculture sites in the Delaware Inland bays and trawling-based surveys of benthic communities at the Aleutian Islands.
M.S. Students
Kelsey Hofheinz
Kelsey Hofheinz started working for the Baker lab as an intern in April 2022. She primarily works on the Alabama Living Shorelines Restoration and Monitoring Project but assists with other lab research as needed. Kelsey earned her bachelor’s in Biological Sciences from Mississippi State University in 2019. While attending Mississippi State, Kelsey completed an internship with the marine mammal research division of the Pascagoula National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab. After graduating, Kelsey accepted a position as a temporary research technician for the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory’s Center for Fisheries Research and Development. Before joining the Baker lab, Kelsey worked in Illinois as a fisheries ecology research technician. Kelsey’s work in Illinois focused on sampling man-made reservoirs and on-site experimental ponds. While in Illinois, she also ran behavioral research trials on a variety of sunfish species.
Senior Research Technician
Will Ellis
Will Ellis started working in the Baker lab in May 2023 as an intern on the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines Project. Will was promoted to a Research Technician as of August 2023, and a Senior Research Technician as of April 2024. Will graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2023 with a BS in Ecology. At UGA Will worked in Dr. Byers’ lab, conducting several different projects involving various mollusc species. Will completed a Senior thesis in the Byers lab studying the effects of parasites on oyster predator’s prey selection. He plans to attend graduate school and to continue a career in research studying marine and fisheries ecology.
Research Technicians
Summer Hancock
Summer started working in the Baker lab in August 2023 under the NOAA RESTORE-funded Oyster/Blue Crab/Sea Trout project and became a Research Technician in spring of 2024. She primarily works on living shoreline fieldwork and related sample processing. Summer graduated from the University of South Alabama with a Bachelor's in Marine Sciences. During her time at South Alabama, she worked in various labs, including monitoring the conditions for sea turtle nesting, growing algae, and identifying environmental and chemical stressors. She plans on furthering her career in marine science by obtaining her master's and continuing research on marine organisms and their habitats.
Kate Moore
Kate Moore started working in the Baker lab in October 2023 as an intern under the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines Project, and is now a Research Technician as of April 2024. Kate graduated from the University of Georgia in May with a B.S. in Ecology. At the University of Georgia, Kate completed a senior thesis examining the effect of physical traits and parasite infection on oyster engineering function. Before joining the Baker lab, Kate worked as a technician in Acadia National Park working with citizen scientists to assess coastal diversity in Maine. She plans to attend graduate school to pursue a career in coastal marine ecology research. Her research interests include applied fisheries, coastal ecology, and community ecology.
Interns
Natalie Watts
Natalie Watts started working in the Baker Lab in April 2024 as an intern under the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines Project. She graduated from Maryville College in May 2023 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a minor in Environmental Science. At Maryville, she completed a senior thesis that examined the social and ecological impacts of industrialized fishing. Natalie’s research interests center around anthropogenic activity and its effects on marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
Lilly Niccum
Lilly Niccum began her M.S in Marine Conservation and Resource Management at USA in August 2024 and joined the Baker lab as an intern in September. Lilly graduated from Concordia University in Irvine, CA with her B.S. in Biology in 2021. At CUI, she completed a senior thesis studying the effects of anthropogenic noise pollution on a local surf perch species. Before joining the Baker Lab, Lilly worked on projects studying the ecology of the Pismo Clam and as a fisheries observer in the Bering Sea collecting data for nationally managed Alaskan fisheries. After completing her master's, Lilly plans to pursue her interests in fisheries and marine ecology.
Margo Moyer
Margo started working in the Baker Lab in October 2024 as an intern under the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines Project. She graduated from Eckerd College in May 2023 with a B.S in Marine Science and a B.A. in Animal Studies. Margo’s thesis (in collaboration with NOAA Ocean Exploration) focused on midwater faunal diversity and abundance in the Marianas Trench. Since graduating, she has interned for the Guppy Project in Arima, Trinidad, as well as working as a PADI DiveMaster in Koh Tao, Thailand and Jupiter, Florida. Margo’s research interests primarily focus on tropical reef associate ecology and climate change mitigation.
In Loving Memory
Cissie Havard
Cissie Havard was a technician at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dr. Ken Heck’s Marine Ecology lab from 1997-2023 and worked part-time in the Baker lab from 2021-2023. Cissie worked on a variety of projects including fish gut content processing for diet analysis and processing underwater video footage quantifying fish communities on restored oyster reefs. She also worked on processing samples for the RESTORE-funded Alabama Living Shorelines project samples such as benthic infauna, sediment characteristics, SAV benthic cores, and nekton community.
Laboratory Alumni
Graduate Students
Matheus de Barros, Marine Science M.S. Student, 2022-2024
Zoe Porter, Marine Science Ph.D. student, 2020-2021
Nicholas LaBon, Environmental Toxicology M.S. student, 2019-2021
Alyssa Frank, Marine Conservation and Resource Management M.S. student, 2019-2020
Angela Garelick, Marine Conservation and Resource Management M.S. student, 2018-2020
Research Technicians
Polly Straughn, 2023-2024
Grace Stringer, 2023-2024
Christopher Grant, 2022-2023
Megan Laufer, 2022-2023
Jonathan Chapman, 2022-2023
Dakota Bilbrey, 2021
Frank D'Alonzo III, 2020-2021
Interns
Andrew Clark, REU Intern, Summer 2024
Ashten Notz, REU Intern, Summer 2023
Shelby Kuck, Work Study Intern, Summer 2022 & 2023
Claire Legaspi, REU Intern, Summer 2022
Tessa Moody,Work Study Intern, Summer 2022
Maranda Palmer, Work Study Intern, Summer 2022
Jordon King, REU Intern, Summer 2021
Trinity Curry, REU Intern, Summer 2020
Polly Straughn, Undergraduate Intern, 2020
Sharil Deleon, REU Intern, Summer 2019