Congratulations to our students elected as Florida Chapter of the American Fisheries Society Student Subunit officers!

President: Casey Murray

Casey is a PhD student at the Tropical Aquaculture Lab working with Dr. Matt DiMaggio where she her research is focused on characterizing larval fish digestive physiology to inform the design of feeding and weaning protocols that aim to reduce the overall use of live feeds while maintaining high larval survival. Casey is studying both freshwater and marine ornamental fishes to develop species-specific larval fish culture protocols. Casey received her B.A. in Biology from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2015 where she discovered her passion for ornamental aquaculture during her senior thesis research on the determination of juvenile Banggai cardinalfish habitat preference.

Casey graduated from the University of Miami with a Master of Professional Science degree in 2017 where she studied the factors affecting loggerhead sea turtle hatch success in Everglades National Park. Prior to starting at the Tropical Aquaculture Lab in 2019, Casey worked at Roger Williams University where she helped culture Atlantic lookdowns, glassy sweepers, and smallmouth grunts along with researching alternative protein sources in salmonid feeds.

In her spare time, Casey enjoys traveling, baking and spending time with her pet duck, Tiny.

University Liaison: Kristie Perez

Kristie is a certified project manager with a background in corporate project management. She will complete her master’s degree in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences this summer. Her technical project is focused on the planning for a Long-Term Stakeholder Process which has been proposed to begin later this year for Florida’s newly designated Nature Coast Aquatic Preserve.

Her primary interests are in aquatic animal health, coastal management, and conservation behavior.

She will begin a PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology in the fall at UF’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment focused on these as they pertain to shellfish in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuary Research Reserve.

View the full list of 2021 officers.

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