Ocean builders – Alexa Runyan uses 3-D models and novel technologies to discover how coral reef architecture affects its inhabitants and visitors | Rising Sea Voices Podcast

In this episode, Alexa Runyan, Ph.D. student in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, explains how the call of the ocean deflected her from a musical career and led her to study coral reefs. Alexa explains her undergraduate work in Dr. John H. R. Burns’ lab on the structural complexity of coral reefs using a 3-dimensional (3D) approach to understand how the reef architecture affects organisms such as invertebrates and fish. Now the awardee of a highly competitive Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, Alexa will continue this work with Dr. Brennan Phillips. This time, instead of scuba-diving to collect data on Hawaiian reefs, Alexa explains how she will use novel technologies and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) to explore deep-sea reefs in Bermuda. Her dream: mapping the whole ocean seafloor!