Baums Laboratory

Iliana serves as a Professor of Marine Conservation and co-director at the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Miami using population genetic tools to study asexual reproduction and gene flow in the Caribbean elkhorn coral Acropora palmata. She completed post docs at the University of Miami with Dr. Jack Fell and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology with Dr. Rob Toonen. She studies how corals and their symbionts acclimate and adapt to rapidly changing environments bridging the fields of ecology, evolution and conservation genetics.

Kelly received her PhD from Penn State University on coral photo physiology. Her research has focused on how light shapes coral physiology, symbiosis and morphology. Currently, Kelly is investigating how we can use standard heat stress experiments to understand coral temperature stress responses.

Isabel is a PhD student intrigued by how organisms sense and use light as an informational signal. Specifically, her current research aims to establish the molecular basis of the sensory mechanisms that allow reef-building corals to detect and process light signals, and how such cues influence their behavior, physiology, and form.

Severin is a graduate student and technical assistant in the Marine Conservation Group. He graduated from the University of Oldenburg with a focus on the structure of octocoral mitochondrial genomes and molecular species discrimination. Severin is interested in deep-sea octocoral biodiversity, population genomics, as well as coral-associated fauna and coral microbiomes.

Abigail studies coral reef microbial ecology, animal-microbe symbiosis, and networks. She is part of the HIPP cohort from 2024. Her project focuses on interrogating the crustose coralline algae host-microbial symbiosis and to characterize how this relationship changes in response to changing environmental conditions. She is also interested in creating functional profiles of crustose coralline microbiomes and assessing how coral larval settlement changes when she manipulates the crustose coralline algae microbial communities.

Joseane studies coral reef microbial ecology, animal-microbe symbiosis, and networks. She is part of the HIPP cohort from 2024. Joseane studies multiple anthropogenic stressors, integrative physiology, ecotoxicology, biochemistry and adaptation of corals.

Laura is a postdoc and part of the 2025 HIPP cohort. She is interested in how marine species declines, especially mass mortality events, affect ecosystems. Using a combination of molecular tools and fieldwork, she aims to investigate the population structure, resilience, and recovery potential of key herbivores like sea urchins, and how these kinds of events shape coral reef ecosystems under climate and anthropogenic stressors.

Kim de Luca is a postdoc in the Marine Conservation group. Her background is in single-cell and single-molecule genomics, with an emphasis on epigenetics and chromatin.

Fabian is a Technical Assistant in the Marine Conservation Group. He graduated from the University of University of Gothenburg with a focus on population genetics. Fabian is an avid SCUBA diver and interested in population genomics.