[Coral-List] Ecology of marine infectious disease course

Colleen Burge colleenb at umbc.edu
Thu Nov 15 23:22:23 UTC 2018


Dear listers-

In summer 2019, at the Friday Harbor Labs in Washington State, Maya Groner,
Tal Ben-Horin and I (Colleen Burge) will be co-teaching an intensive
hands-on course on the ecology of infectious marine diseases
<https://fhl.uw.edu/courses/course-descriptions/course/ecology-of-infectious-marine-disease-2019-2/>.
The course will be appropriate for grad students, postdocs and advanced
undergrads.

We are thrilled to be teaching this course and would value your help in
advertising this opportunity to potential students. We have some
scholarship support available.

Previous iterations of this course have included students with diverse
backgrounds in marine disease including coral disease.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

All the best,
Colleen:)

FHL 568 | SUMMER A 2019Ecology of Infectious Marine Disease 2019

Credits: 9

Instructor(s): Dr. Maya Groner <mgroner at pwssc.org> , Dr. Tal Ben-Horin
<colleenb at umbc.edu> , Dr. Colleen Burge <tbenhorin at uri.edu>

Prerequisites:

This course will be a training program in host-pathogen ecology that will
bring together and train the future leaders in the rapidly emerging,
multidisciplinary field of marine disease ecology. Students in the course
will learn techniques to:

1)  survey host-pathogen interactions in the Friday Harbor region

2)  learn how to test Koch’s postulates (to prove that a pathogen causes
disease)

3)  identify viral, bacterial, protozoan and metazoan infections

4)  learn and test major theories of disease ecology

5)  practice communicating about disease processes and risk to a variety of
audiences

6)  learn genetic and genomic techniques for understanding disease processes

7)  practice building mathematical models of disease

8)  use these methods to address ecological questions about the
distribution of pathogenic interactions and the mechanisms underlying them.

A primary goal of the interdisciplinary course is to provide advanced
undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral investigators with a
broad understanding of host-pathogen interactions as well as the techniques
used to study the ecology of marine animals *in situ*. We provide students
with a unique opportunity to use state-of-the-art tools and technologies,
do fieldwork in a highly biodiverse environment, join a network of active
disease ecologists and collaborate on publishable research projects.

The program will have three core modules, reflecting the strengths of the
professors. These include: (1) conducting field surveys and experiments,
(2) understanding patterns of biodiversity and disease using DNA barcoding
and (3) building mathematical models of marine disease. Each of these
modules will be focused on learning a unique skillset while conducting
original research on a novel question. Towards the end of the course,
students will divide into smaller groups to focus on one of these projects,
with the eventual goal (after the course has been finished) of publication.
Previous iterations of this structure have resulted in student publications
in *PLoS One, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms*, and *Integrative and
Comparative Biology*.

Instructors for this course are:
Dr. Maya Groner <mgroner at pwssc.org>, Research Ecologist, Prince William
Sound Science Center
Dr. Colleen Burge <colleenb at umbc.edu>, Assistant Professor, Institute of
Marine and Environmental Technology, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Dr. Tal Ben-Horin <tbenhorin at uri.edu>, Agricultural Research Fellow,
Department of Fisheries, College of the Environment and Life Sciences,
University of Rhode Island

Enrollment is limited to 15 students. No textbook is required for this
course.

Note:  Student transcripts from University of Washington will list “FHL
568: Advanced Topics in Ecology and Biomechanics”
-- 
Colleen Burge
Assistant Professor
Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Columbus Center
701 East Pratt Street
Baltimore MD 21202 USA
(410) 234-8834 (office)
(410) 234-8835 (lab)
Website: http://imet.umces.edu/cburge/


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