Dr Blake USHIJIMA

Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina Wilmington

Dr. Ushijima received his Ph.D. at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Microbiology working on Vibrio spp. that infect corals. He continued as a postdoc at Oregon State University working on bacterial oyster pathogens and probiotics. He was then awarded the George Burch Research Fellowship to work at the Smithsonian Marine Station studying stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) and was one of the lead investigators for the Coral Health and Marine Probiotics Lab. In Fall 2020, he accepted an Assistant Professor position at UNCW. His current research focuses  on studying the etiology of SCTLD and the development of probiotic treatments for active infections and to protect healthy corals from disease transmission.