Faculty
Brad Gemmell
Associate Professor
CONTACT
Tampa campus
Office: SCA 317
Phone: (813) 974-1228
Lab: SCA 305, SCA 308
Email: bgemmell@usf.edu
| Specialty Area | Recent Publications |
|---|---|
| Marine ecology, fluid dynamics and animal behavior |
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Marine Science, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 2011
B.S., Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2006
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.