Carol A. Stepien

Biography

She received a Bachelor of Sciences degree cum laude in Biology with Chemistry and English minors from Bowling Green University, where she was an officer in the Biology Honorary Society Beta Beta Beta, published her first research on neurobiology of a luminescent fish, became a licensed SCUBA diver, and was mentored by Cynthia Stong in Marine Biology. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Southern California in Biological Sciences, with Ecology and Evolution specialization. She made more than 600 Scuba dives at the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Santa Catalina Island for her dissertation research, "Regulation of Color Morphic Patterns in Kelpfishes: Genetic versus Environmental Factors". She began her grant track record as a Sea Grant graduate research fellow, and also was funded by the American Museum of Natural History and the Sigma Xi Scientific Honorary Society. She won the prestigious Stoye Best Paper award in Ichthyology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. Concurrently, she taught Marine Biology and Invertebrate Zoology courses for California State University as a lecturer. While writing her dissertation, she became a visiting assistant professor at the University of San Diego where she taught Marine Biology, taking her students on a field trip every other week, and was a researcher at Hubbs-Sea World Marine Research Institute. She then wrote her own National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral research fellowship, which she conducted at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego with the famous ichthyologist Dr. Richard Rosenblatt. She received a National Geographic Society award to investigate the kelp forest fishes of Chile in comparison to those of California. Next, she became an Alfred Sloan postdoctoral fellow in Molecular Evolution at the University of Texas at Austin with Dr. David Hillis. She then was a National Research Associate at the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, to discern the genetic stock structure of Dover sole and rockfishes, which are heavily trawl-fished commercial fisheries. She returned to the Great Lakes as an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University, where she held an endowed chair in Urban Ecosystems and taught Population Biology, Evolution, Population Genetics, and Marine Ecology. There she began her long-term work on the genetics of Great Lakes invasions by the zebra and quagga mussels, the Eurasian ruffe, and the round and tubenose gobies. She also founded her continuing research on the population stocks of walleye and yellow perch in the Great Lakes. 

Research Interest

  Conservation Genetics, Invasive species genetic strategies, Evolutionary biology, biogeography