Meet Our Team
We are an interdisciplinary research team working together to learn more about how Tampa Bay waters influence our health and our lives.
Dr. Murawski is a fisheries biologist and marine ecologist involved in understanding the impacts of human activities on the sustainability of ocean ecosystems. Dr. Murawski is a professor, seasoned marine researcher and science administrator, and the Downtown St. Pete Partnership Endowed Chair of Biological Oceanography at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science. He oversees all aspects of the TBS study design, execution, reporting, financial management, outreach and intersections with the Management Transition Advisory Group.
Dr. Fogelson is a board certified veterinary anatomic pathologist with over 20 years of aquatic animal health diagnostic and research endeavors. In addition to her veterinary degree, she also holds a master’s degree in Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures and a PhD in Aquatic Animal Pathology. Dr. Fogelson provides histology, aquatic veterinary, and pathology support for researchers, biologists, aquarists, aquaculture professionals, veterinarians, and graduate students throughout the country. Over the years she has participated in a wide variety of research explorations that range from bioinformatic analysis of aquatic bacterial genomes to fish immunology, pathology, and transcriptomics as they relate to disease. Her current role for the Tampa Bay Surveillance project is to evaluate fish vital organ systems via histopathology and provide insight on chemical contaminant levels in relation to fish health.
Ethan Goddard has 20+ years of experience supporting applied analytical biogeochemistry research with an emphasis on stable isotope, trace element and organic biomarker analytical techniques. Ethan manages the Marine Environmental Chemistry (MEC) Laboratory, which houses magnetic sector isotope ratio and triple-quadrupole mass spectrometers and specializes in stable isotope, contaminant and biomarker biogeochemical analyses. Ethan supports the research of a diverse array of faculty, external collaborators and agency partners, informally mentors graduate students in the art and science of analytical chemistry, and loves to play and coach soccer.
Roxann’s professional background spans field-based ecology, education, and business administration and management. She has participated in wildlife research with the University of Montana, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) in Florida and Georgia, served as an educator in NYC, Seattle, and Telluride, and was a naturalist on the Georgia coast and in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Roxann owned a small business while in Colorado, and is currently pursuing an MPA at the School of Public Affairs at USF. For the TBS project, Roxann oversees the development of the website and assists with planning, project organization, and outreach.
Ryan is an undergraduate student at Eckerd College studying Marine Science and is currently an intern at USF for the TBS study. Having spent the majority of his life in water, understanding and preserving the ocean has always been a focus. As an intern, he assists in collecting, processing, and analyzing samples.
Dr. Heather O’Leary has nearly 20 years of experience engaging communities in their water practices and beliefs— making water risk mitigation plans and policies more democratic, efficient, and sustainable. Her research interests include transnational disparities related to women’s rights, water politics, urbanization and the environment. Dr. O’Leary is responsible for the design, collection and analysis of results from fisher interviews and associated elements related to how subsistence fishers differ from other fishing-oriented stakeholder groups.
Dr. Schwing’s research addresses societally relevant and globally significant issues including land-use development impacts, deep sea mining, oil spills, and the distribution and impacts of microplastics on marine systems. He utilizes sedimentological, radiochemical, micropaleontological, and biogeochemical tools to document the changing structure and function of benthic and planktic ecosystems. Dr. Schwing is an assistant professor at Eckerd College, a courtesy research associate at USF’s College of Marine Science, and is also involved with several international, collaborative projects. Dr. Schwing and the Eckerd College group are responsible for overseeing sediment sampling activities and developing chronologies of pollution by various CECs and CKCs over time.
Ms. Gilbert is the Program Manager for the TBS project and has over 20 years of experience specializing in large, complex scientific research projects. She holds a MS in Physical Oceanography and a MBA from the University of South Florida. Sherryl is responsible for the overall coordination and management of the project including financial and activity reporting, environmental compliance, MTAG meetings and communications, and outreach activities.
Alexandra is a master’s student in Dr. Murawski’s lab, specializing in Marine Resource Assessment (MRA). Growing up in Minnesota, she has always been concerned with marine preservation, conservation, and reducing the impact of human activities on marine ecosystems. With a background in chemistry, her graduate research will be guided by the objectives of this project, where she’ll contribute skills to study, characterize, and quantify chemical contaminants, such as PFAS/PFOS. She’s passionate about outreach and community science education, a major goal of this project.
AJ Gross is a technician in Mya Breitbart’s lab. His role on the project is to look into the abatement of chemical contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, plasticizers, and UV-blockers in environmental and wastewater samples. His interest in the project focuses on characterizing what chemical pollutants are making their way into Tampa Bay and looking at ways to minimize/prevent their addition through treatment strategies.
Dr. Romero’s research focuses on uncovering geochemical signatures in the ocean as archives of how marine systems function and respond to natural and anthropogenic events. As the principal scientist in charge of analyzing various media obtained in the study for CECs and CKEs, Dr. Romero also maintains analytical instrumentation and trains graduate students and technicians in the use of instrumentation, QA/QC procedures and data interpretation.
Dr. Breitbart is a Distinguished University Professor and has spent over a decade studying oceanic viral abundance, diversity, and biogeography. Along the way, she played an integral part in developing the scientific field of viral metagenomics, and her lab continues to expand the application of this technique to new environments and research questions. For this project, Dr. Breitbart investigates methodologies to abate, in particular, pharmaceutical pollution as evidenced in environmental samples obtained from various media sampled from Tampa Bay.
Dr. Kilborn’s research focuses on describing large marine ecosystems and their associated fisheries in terms of the biological and non-biological aspects relevant to management and for moderating competing stakeholder interests. For the TBS project, Dr. Kilborn is responsible for multivariate statistical approaches to the analysis of contaminant information and related biometric and fish health outcome information. He will also assist in the calculation of quantitative risk assessments for seafood consumption, and relate information collected from social science field activities to data collected from the natural system.
Kylee is a PhD student in Dr. Steve Murawski’s lab and has previous experience studying recreationally and commercially important fish species in the Gulf of Mexico. For this project, Kylee assists in the collection, processing, and analysis of fish tissues, learning many new techniques along the way. Kylee grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida and is passionate about the health and human impacts of contaminants in her home waters, as well as the broader impacts of using these techniques to study contaminants in other urban areas.
Devon is an analytical chemist interested in anthropogenic environmental contaminants and radiocarbon dating. At the College of Marine Science, he helps students or visiting scientists with fieldwork, sample preparation and operation of laboratory instrumentation. For this project, Devon assists with sample collection, processing and archiving. He utilizes established methods to extract and quantify a suite of PFAS compounds in fish tissues and sediments collected from Tampa Bay. In his free time, Devon enjoys playing soccer, golf, and watching the Philadelphia Eagles.
Daisy recently graduated from Eckerd College with a BS in Marine Science. For the TBS project, Daisy’s focus is catching target fish species and assisting with dissections and chemical analyses in the lab. She has previously worked with foraminifera and sea anemones in lab assistant roles at Eckerd College along with acting as a peer mentor for the Scientist at Sea program.
