Dr. Stephen A. Karl is an Associate Researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. His interests in marine biology began as a child jumping from tide pool to tide pool in New England. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1981 and worked on a variety of marine ecology projects in southern California until entering graduate school at the University of Georgia in 1987. Steve earned his Ph.D. in genetics in 1992 and was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University working on population genetics of hydrothermal vent animals. He was a faculty member at the University of South Florida from 1993 to 2005 when he moved to Hawaii. Steve’s research blends his interests and expertise in ecology and genetics to help better understand the biology of marine vertebrates and invertebrates.