Please welcome Dr. Samantha Koda to Whitney Laboratory! She recently joined Dr. David Duffy's lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Dr. Koda was born and raised in southern California where her love for aquatic animals began. She earned her BS in Aquatic Biology at UC Santa Barbara where she first started doing laboratory work involving the ecology of kelp forests. Following graduation, her passion for aquatic animal health was cultivated through working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Aquarium of the Pacific, and a large marine wholesaler in Los Angeles. Samantha then pursued her Master's and PhD at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine conducting molecular diagnostics, challenge studies, and research on megalocytiviruses of fish. She recently joined the Duffy and Ibarra-Castro labs as a postdoctoral research associate. Her main research in the Duffy lab will be focused on sea turtle fibropapillomatosis and finding biomarkers in the host or pathogen that could potentially be used to predict host rehabilitation outcome based on gene expression levels. Additionally, she will be working with Dr. Ibarra-Castro on the reproduction of important aquaculture fish species. She has many interests including cooking Japanese food, indoor cycling, aquascaping, basketball, and scrapbooking.