Assessments and Conservation of Biological Diversity from Coral Reefs to the Deep Sea - Uncovering Buried Treasures and the Value of the Benthos

Professor Lopez's research at Nova Southeastern University's Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography (NSU HCNSO) pivots on the action of genes/genomes, microbes and evolution. For nearly 25 years, his lab has applied genomics tools to address various specific questions in marine invertebrate-microbial symbiosis, microbial ecology, forensics, metagenomics, gene expression of oil-exposed organisms, and systematics/phylogenetics. Dr. Lopez is part of the DEEPEND Consortium to better understand food webs and microbial distributions in the deep Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. His laboratory was one of the founding members for the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance or GIGA. Professor Lopez and GIGA is also part of the wider Earth Biogenome Project. He was recently recognized as NSU's President's Distinguished Professor, and Halmos College Of Natural Sciences and Oceanography Professor of the Year (2018-2019).