Olga Pantos

Biography

Her research includes assessment of the potential impacts of contaminants on the safety of wild-caught seafood for human consumption and ecosystem health, and the identification of ways in which these impacts may be reduced. Her background is in marine biology, having completed her undergraduate degree in Marine and Environmental Biology at St Andrews University in Scotland and her doctoral studies at The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Olga's PhD focused on characterising the microbial communities associated with healthy and diseased tropical corals, with the ultimate aim of identifying the causal agents of three coral diseases and coral bleaching, which together have been responsible for the mass mortality of corals around the world. After completing her PhD, Olga took up a post-doctoral position at San Diego State University in the US, where she continued her research on coral health and disease. In that position, she focused more on the associations between environmental factors, microbial communities and Caribbean coral reef ecosystem health. Olga was also part of a team that carried out a research cruise along the Northern Line Islands in the Central Pacific, from Kiritimati to Kingman Reef. The team investigated the impacts of human populations on water quality and on organisms at all levels of the oceanic food web, from microbes to sharks.

Research Interest

Her research projects during this time included determining how anthropogenic stressors such as land-based pollution and rising water temperatures affect coastal ecosystems (including coral reefs and lagoons). In that project, Olga assessed the impact of the stressors on the microbial communities associated with the organisms and their habitats. She was also part of a project examining the impacts of ocean acidification on sea cucumbers, and the important ecosystem services they provide.