Faculty
Brad Gemmell
Associate Professor
CONTACT
Tampa campus
Office: SCA 317
Phone: (813) 974-1228
Lab: SCA 305, SCA 308
Email
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Marine Science, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 2011
B.S., Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2006
Teaching
- Marine Ecosystem Dynamics
- Marine Biology
- Fish Biology
Specialty AREAs
Marine ecology, fluid dynamics and animal behavior
Recent Publications
RESEARCH
My research is highly interdisciplinary and lies at the intersection of biology and physics. Specifically, I am interested in the role of animal-fluid interactions in the marine environment and how these govern important biological factors such as predator-prey interactions as well as large-scale ecosystem processes and evolutionary relationships. My work includes a mechanistic approach to investigate how organisms function in fluid environments and extends to sublethal effects of environmental pollutants (e.g. oil spills). I specialize in the use of high speed imaging techniques such as particle image velocimetry (2D) and holographic cinematography (3D) to answer ecologically relevant questions regarding animal interactions with: fluid, predators, feeding, mating, migration, swimming and turbulence. Closely aligned with my study of animal-fluid interactions is a general interest in the evolutionary arms race between predators and prey, convergent evolution in propulsive mechanisms and understanding biological propulsion for use in bio-inspired design.