Eric Crandall

Education

Ph.D. Boston University, 2008

B.A. University of California at Berkeley, 1998

Postdoctoral Training

Old Dominion University, 2008 - 2009

University of California, Santa Cruz / NOAA Fisheries, 2010 - 2014

University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2014 - 2015

Awards

Palmer-Mcleod Fellow - Boston University Marine Program

NSF GK-12 Education Fellow - Boston University Project STAMP

Outstanding Teaching Fellow - Boston University Marine Program 2002, 2004

Research Interests

The planktonic larvae of most marine fish and invertebrates are microscopic, yet they have the potential to travel on ocean currents over distances far greater than the propagules of most terrestrial organisms. How then does larval dispersal influence metapopulation structure across the vast ranges of many marine species? This question is central to modern marine biology. The answers can have significant consequences for our understanding of marine ecology, evolution, and conservation. A primary goal in my research is to better understand the ecological and evolutionary consequences of larval dispersal for marine populations and species. My approach is integrative: I employ probabilistic models to extract information from genetic data in the context of evidence from geology, remote sensing, and biophysical models.

I am also very interested in fostering international collaboration, capacity building, and open science. In this era of “big data,” it is no longer possible for laboratories to address pressing questions about marine biodiversity by themselves. To this end, I and many others are putting together a collaborative network - The Diversity of the Indo-Pacific Network  DIPnet and a database for structured metadata that describes biological samples, the Genomic Observatories Metadatabase GEOME.