I completed my B.A. in Marine Biology at the College of Charleston, and M.S. in Biology at the University of North Florida, where I studied the genetic mechanisms underlying temperature tolerance of a threatened coral in the Florida Keys. After graduating from my M.S. in 2018, I worked with the Sea Turtle Hospital at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory, where I specialized in bioinformatic analyses of tumor samples from green sea turtle patients in order to better understand the cancerous disease, fibropapillomatosis. As a Ph.D. student in the EELab, I am currently studying the mechanisms underlying how epigenetic states are encoded in corals, particularly in terms of how different histone modifications, non-coding RNAs, and DNA methylation influence coral environmental responses. I am studying how non-coding RNAs may be involved in communication and mediating the coral-algal symbiosis.
Florida International University
Kelsey Yetsko, Ph.D. Student, FIU Presidential Fellow
Research Fields
- Epigenetics
- Omics
- Cnidarian Biology
- Molecular Ecology
- Evolution
- Symbiosis
- Global Change
- Adaptation
