Dr. Sam Starko
Sam is a marine biologist interested in how habitat-forming foundation species interact with the environment and how the environment can influence interactions between species. His work combines molecular techniques, biomechanics and field ecology to better understand how environment-organism interactions can influence processes important to ecology, evolution and conservation.
Sam has just started an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Victoria, where he is working with Dr. Julia Baum studying how broad-scale (e.g. heat-waves) and fine-scale (e.g. fishing, pollution) disturbance can interactively influence hard corals and their symbionts. Sam recently finished his PhD in the Department of Botany and Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. At UBC, Sam was a Killam Scholar and worked in the lab of Dr. Patrick Martone, investigating the evolution and ecology of rocky shore seaweeds.