Please welcome Max Miller to the Whitney Laboratory! He joins the lab as a laboratory technician.
Max graduated from Eckerd College with high honors in 2022, receiving a BS in Biochemistry and Marine Science (Biology). His undergraduate research focused on genotyping the algal symbionts of the glass anemone Exaiptasia diaphana, a model organism for coral symbiosis. As a 2020 NOAA Hollings Scholar, he worked with Smithsonian scientists to automate marine invertebrate identification using machine learning and environmental DNA (eDNA).
After graduating, Max worked in a gene therapy lab focused on reversing genetic forms of blindness. Most recently, he managed the water chemistry of over 30 coral and jellyfish aquaculture systems. Max is drawn to marine biodiscovery, the search for useful molecules and biological tools from marine life. At Whitney, he is excited to contribute to a project developing the starlet anemone Nematostella vectensis as a platform for protein expression and biomineralization research. Outside the lab, Max enjoys writing music, keeping reef aquariums, and training his parrot, Yoshi. He is also an avid scuba diver and completed his PADI Divemaster training on the Great Barrier Reef.