Anderson Mayfield
Department of Zoology,
University of Hawai`i
2538 McCarthy Mall,
Edmondson 152
Honolulu, HI 96822
mayfield@hawaii.edu

Research Interests
Anderson, a nerd from birth, has been working most of his life to reach the position he now holds as a PhD student at UH-Manoa. Years after a typical and downright cliché first encounter with coral reefs in 7th grade, he decided that his hometown of Nashville, TN just wasn't going to cut it anymore and left for college at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 2001. When even Central NC proved to be too distant from the oceans, Anderson spent his last semester split between the Duke marine laboratory in Beaufort, NC and the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. After graduation, he still hadn't had his fill of marine science and so left for Townsville, Australia in 2003 to study coral reef ecology at James Cook University on a more substantial chunk of reef than in his previous Florida and Bermuda experiences.

Diving on the Great Barrier Reef quickly turned Anderson into a dive snob despite constant efforts to remain humble. This diving itch led him to Akumal, a small town on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico known for its coral reef (imagine that). Months of surveying reefs in the warm, clear waters proved to be a rough life only in the sense that it lacked mental stimulation, so Anderson applied to graduate school at UH-Manoa to work with Dr. Ruth Gates.

Upon acceptance to the department, he also received funding to work on a new mechanism for coral bleaching that considers the osmotic stress component of the coral-algae symbiosis. Such work would not only help us understand how symbioses break down but also which processes are important at the biochemical level to maintain the integrity of the symbiosis in times of environmental change. Consequent molecular biomarker development stemming from levels of transcription during bleaching events and fluctuations in other relevant biochemicals such as heat shock proteins and ability of corals to acclimate and adapt at the biochemical and physiological level to environmental changes are Anderson's two overarching interests.

Despite being a student of biology and zoology, nature seems to hate this guy! Not only has he been stung, harassed, and bitten by countless bees, wasps, jellyfish, snakes, dogs, cats, and squirrels, Anderson has had more significant animal encounters such as being kicked by a kangaroo in the Aussie bush and receiving a broken nose from a grizzly bear punch to the face in central Alaska. Hence, he now considers himself fortunate to work on coral and looks forward to a shark attack in years to come.