Nicholas

Wong

I am a 3rd year PhD student at Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Institute with the Ludington lab. I am passionate about applying interdisciplinary studies to tackle complex ecological issues. I did my undergraduate and masters in microbiology and mathematics at UCSD and Scripps Institute of Oceanography to pursue a career in microbial oceanography. I'm living the dream, studying the biological and genetic mechanisms that drive algal blooms in relation to their physical environmental conditions, and how anthropogenic influences can increase the severity and frequency of blooms. I build custom robots to grow these algae in a variety of environmentally relevant conditions. These robots help me perform genetic screens to identify a potential essential gene set that facilitate blooms. We aim to develop an encompassing model linking biological phenomena to environmental stimulus for algae to improve prediction models for blooms.