Environmental Protection Agency awards $132,000 to graduate student for coral reef research

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Chris Wall, (808) 236-7455
Doctoral Candidate, HIMB, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
Marcie Grabowski, (808) 956-3151
Outreach Specialist, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
Posted: Sep 22, 2016

Collecting seawater and suspended food sources available to reef corals. Credit: K. Steward
Collecting seawater and suspended food sources available to reef corals. Credit: K. Steward
Chris mentoring a high school student. Credit: S. Thomas
Chris mentoring a high school student. Credit: S. Thomas
Chris Wall, EPA Research STAR Research Fellow. Credit: M. Wall
Chris Wall, EPA Research STAR Research Fellow. Credit: M. Wall

Chris Wall, a UH Mānoa marine biology doctoral candidate, has been selected for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellowship program. With this honor, Wall received a $132,000 award to support his research on the impacts of near-shore stressors, such as nutrient pollution, and global stressors, such as rising seawater temperature, on coral reefs. 

“While climate change is a long-term and significant threat to coral reefs, it is important to remember that global changes to our ocean will co-occur atop local and regional factors that may support reef resilience or amplify the negative effects of climate change stress,” said Wall, a member of Ruth Gates’ laboratory at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) in UHM’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). 

Wall’s project will specifically focus on the interaction of local and global stressors on reef corals in Hawai‘i by testing how temperature and dissolved nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, affect a coral’s energy balance. Environmental stress can reduce the performance of reef corals and lead to breakdown of the relationship between coral and its algae symbionts (Symbiodinium spp.) — epitomized by the phenomena known as “coral bleaching." Ultimately, nutrient pollution may cause corals to be more sensitive to ocean warming and bleaching.

“Chris’ EPA-supported work aims to tease apart and prioritize the diverse environmental threats facing coral reefs in Kāneʻohe,” said Ruth Gates, HIMB director and researcher. “This knowledge is critical in targeting management actions that can best protect and sustain Hawaiʻi’s valuable reef resources.”

“Through EPA’s funding, the STAR fellows will pursue innovative research projects while attaining advanced academic degrees,” said Alexis Strauss, EPA’s Acting Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “The work these students are doing is inspirational, and will help address environmental challenges in fields such as atmospheric chemistry, green energy, hydrogeology and toxicology.”

When Wall was in high school, he heard the news of the first global coral bleaching event (1998), “which killed 16% of corals across the reefs of the world,” he said. “This devastating fact, along with my increasing awareness of the local and global factors threatening coral reefs, really sparked my interests in coral reefs in an academic sense, and it motivates my research to this day.”

The EPA awarded more than $6 million to 52 students across the nation this year through STAR graduate fellowships. Since 1995, the STAR fellowship program has awarded nearly 2,000 students a total of more than $65 million in funding. Recipients have engaged in innovative research opportunities, with some becoming prominent leaders in environmental science.

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Read more about the 2016 STAR fellows in the EPA’s press release

Learn more about EPA’s fellowship opportunities: www.epa.gov/research-fellowships

For more information, visit: https://www.soest.hawaii.edu