Brannock Receives NSF Research Opportunity Award

An award from the National Science Foundation will sponsor biology professor Pamela Branock’s involvement on a collaborative research grant through Villanova University in summer 2021.

The project, The Influence of Mangrove Invasion and Rising Temperatures on Belowground Processes In Coastal Ecosystems, will allow Brannock and biochemistry and molecular biology major Zoe Pearson ’22 to expand their meiofaunal research by exploring areas such as climate change and vegetation-change impacts on microscopic organisms within mangrove salt marshes along the northeast coast of Florida. Additional support for the project will be provided through Rollins’ Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program.

The project will also allow Brannock to forge collaborations with members of the Warming Ecosystem Temperatures in a Florida Ecotone Experience Transition (WETFEET) project and other coastal systems researchers from several institutions around the country. Brannock anticipates data from this study to be incorporated into her course on genetics beginning in spring 2022.