Blake Ushijima

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Blake received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Hawai‛i at Mānoa (UHM) in 2010. During his time at UHM he began working as a volunteer intern under Sean Callahan from the Department of Microbiology and Greta Aeby from the Hawai‛i Institute of Marine Biology on a newly formed project investigating coral disease in Kāne‛ohe Bay. As an intern he assisted in developing infection trials with the coral Montipora capitata, and initial assessments of the bacterial populations associated with this coral. Blake continued working on coral disease after being accepted into the graduate program at UHM. During his Ph.D., Blake's researched focusing on the molecular mechanisms of virulence utilized by bacterial coral pathogens, while also developing them as genetic systems. His research also included the characterization of bioactive compounds produced by marine bacteria. Blake has identified the etiological agents responsible for four different bacterial coral diseases, while he assisted in the description of a fungal pathogen affecting the crustose coralline algae at Palymra Atoll and a cyanobacterial disease killing corals off the coast of Kauai, Hawai‛i. Over the years, he has worked on numerous projects collaborating with and/or funded by The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, USGS, Department of Justice, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition to research, Blake has taught a number of laboratory courses at UHM including immunology, general microbiology, marine microbiology, and bacterial genetics. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology in Summer 2016. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University working in the lab of Claudia Hase.

Carla Schubiger

Carla received her DVM in 2001 from the University of Zurich in Switzerland where she was born and raised. She was then accepted into the Graduate program at the University of Bern (also in Switzerland) to pursue a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. Over the next three years she researched a kidney parasite (Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae) in Brown trout and its relationship to water temperature while evaluating and establishing different diagnostic protocols. During that time frame, she was also involved in diagnostic duties (mostly bacteriology and necropsies) at the Fish and Wildlife Center of the College of Veterinary Medicine in Berne. After receiving her doctorate, Carla spent the next 6 years in private practice as a large/mixed and small animal vet and served as the president of the veterinary association in the north-west region of Switzerland. In 2009 she moved to the USA to once again go back to Grad school and pursue a combined PhD/residency program in Immunology and Infectious Diseases and the residency in Veterinary Anatomical Pathology from Washington State University. Carla researched a putative probiotic that was isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of healthy rainbow trout and identified the genes responsible for the expression of an antimicrobial peptide that was effectively inhibiting Flavobacterium psychrophilum, the etiological agent of the devastating Coldwater Disease in Salmonids. After receiving her PhD for this work, she was offered a position as a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Biomedical Science in Claudia Hase lab beginning of 2015.