Coastal Ecology
Stephen A. Borgianini, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at USCB. As a marine ecologist and an evolutionary biologist, he is particularly interested in the evolution of the transition of life forms from salt water to fresh water, and then from fresh water to a terrestrial environment, a process that continues today.
Joseph L. Staton, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Biology at USCB. He is the senior member of the Biology Department, having joined the faculty in 2003 after serving five years at the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine & Coastal Sciences. An internationally recognized academic and research institute, the Baruch Institute conducts basic research on environmental processes, tidal, estuarine and coastal ocean environments. It is the marine biological research component of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He is currently collaborating with his colleagues at USCB and the Baruch Institute Field Lab in Georgetown to study the genetic impacts of dispersal and recruitment patterns in fiddler crabs in the river-dominated estuaries of the southeastern U.S.
Eric W. Montie, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Biology at USCB. His research interests lie at the intersection of marine biology, neurobiology and conservation biology. Dr. Montie uses MRI and diffusion tensor imaging to understand the effects of thyroid hormone-disrupting chemicals on white matter development. He is also involved in a project to investigate how chemical pollutants may affect the development of hearing in wild Atlantic bottlenose dolphins that inhabit the Indian River Lagoon in Florida. In yet a third research initiative, he has begun a passive acoustics program that focuses on acoustic communication of fish and bottlenose dolphins that inhabit the Calibogue and Port Royal Sound estuaries in Beaufort County, S.C.
