Mary Alice Coffroth

• Comment: 1)Please make sure none of this is copied from her university CV -- all WP articles must be written in your own words. (some content, such as a list of papers, will obviously be the same, and altho it is not easy to find other ways to word a list of positions, it can be done. )
  2)We don't refer to professors or anyone else by the title in the text. Remove the Dr. except in the first line.
  3) The awards section must be rewriten either in paragraph form, or as a list
  4)Don't list all the paper-- just the 5 or so most cited, specifying the number of citations from Google Scholar or equivalent.
  When ready, resubmit, because she is probably notable. DGG ( talk ) 00:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

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Mary Alice Coffroth
Nationality	American
Alma mater	College of William and Mary University of Miami
Scientific career
Fields	Marine Biology
Institutions	State University of New York at Buffalo

Dr. Mary Alice Coffroth is an American marine biologist. She is affiliated with the Department of Geology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research is focused on coral larval ecology, recruitment and cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis.

Early years and education

Dr. Coffroth was born in Somerset, PA in 1954. She is the daughter of James Merwin and Mardelle Redrick Coffroth. Her father was a geologist and her mother a secretary. She grew up in Marion, VA, St. Albans, WV and Manassas, Va. and graduated from Stonewall Jackson High School. Dr. Coffroth obtained a B.S. in Biology in 1976 from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, her M.S. (1981) and Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography (1988) from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. She was a postdoctoral research associate at SUNY Buffalo (1988-1989) in the laboratories of H.R. Lasker and J.A. Bruenn working on molecular biology of gorgonian corals. She received an NSF Biotechnology postdoctoral fellowship to work on population genetics of gorgonians which was carried out at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (1990-1992).

Academic career

After her postdoctoral training Dr. Coffroth was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at SUNY Buffalo from 1992 to 1997. She was then an Assistant (2000-2001), Associate (2001-2005) and Full (2005-2006) Professor in the same department. Dr. Coffroth was a Full Professor in the Department of Geology at SUNY Buffalo from 2006 to 2016. She is currently a Research Professor (semi-retired) in the same department. She was a visiting professor at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in Nice, France in 2014 and a Visiting Scientist at Institut de Cie`ncies del Mar, Barcelona, Spain in 2014.

Research

Dr. Coffroth’s Ph.D. research focused on the production of coral mucus by poritid corals and its role in the reef ecosystem. She was an early adopter of molecular approaches in marine ecology initially examining gorgonian population genetics using DNA fingerprinting. Subsequently, Dr. Coffroth was a pioneer in the use of molecular taxonomy of cnidarian photosymbionts and conducted some of the first studies on the early ontogeny of the symbiosis. She has worked extensively on coral spawning in the Caribbean. Her work has shown how corals can initially take up a range of symbiont species which are then winnowed to a predictable subset of the available species. Her more recent work examines how these symbionts are responding to climate change and increasing in sea water temperatures. She established one of the largest algal collections for cultures from Caribbean corals and octocorals (BURR Culture Collection). Her cultures are widely used by labs around the world. She has also carried out research on the Upside-down Jellyfish Cassiopea.

Mentorship

Dr. Coffroth was the program director of the undergraduate B.S. Degree Program in Environmental Geoscience at SUNY Buffalo. She mentored 5 Ph.D. and 16 M.S. students.

Selected awards and professional service

• 2014 Visiting Professor - Fellowship, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, November 2014
• 1990 NSF Marine Biotechnology Postdoctoral Fellowship
• 1986 Rowlands Fellowship, RSMAS, University of Miami
• 1985 Reitmeister Fellowship, RSMAS, University of Miami
• 1983 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Short-Term Fellowship
• 1978-81 Maytag Fellowship, RSMAS
• 1976 Phi Beta Kappa

Selected publications

• 1. Coffroth, M.A. and Santos, S.R. Genetic diversity in Symbiodinium Protist 156:19-34 (2005) (Invited review)
• 2. Shoguchi, E., Shinzato, C., Kawashima, T. Gyoja, F., Mungpakdee S., Koyanagi R, Takeuchi T, Hisata K, Tanaka M, Fujiwara M, Hamada M, Seidi, A, Fujie M, Usami T, Goto H, Yamasaki S, Arakaki N, Suzuki Y, Sugano S, Toyoda A, Kuroki Y, Fujiyama A, Medina M, Coffroth MA, Bhattacharya D and Satoh N. Draft assembly of the Symbiodinium genome reveals dinoflagellate gene structure. Current Biology 23:1-10 (2013)
• 3. DeSalvo MK, Voolstra CR, Sunagawa S, Schwarz JA, Stillman JH, Coffroth MA, Szmant AM, Medina M. Differential gene expression during thermal stress and bleaching in the Caribbean coral Montastraea faveolata Molecular Ecology 17:3952-3971 (2008)
• 4. Botsford L.W , White J.W., Coffroth M.-A., Paris C.B., Planes S., Shearer T.L., Thorrold S.R., Jones, G.P. Connectivity and resilience of coral reef metapopulations in marine protective areas: matching empirical efforts to predictive needs. Coral Reefs 28:327-337 DOI 10.1007/s00338-009-0466-z (2009)
• 5. Kinzie, R.A., Takayama, M., Santos, S.R., and Coffroth, M.A. The adaptive bleaching hypothesis: Experimental tests of critical assumptions. Biol. Bull. 200: 51-58. (2001)

External links

https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/geology/faculty-staff/faculty.host.html/content/shared/arts-sciences/geology/new-faculty-profiles/coffroth-mary-alice.html

Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Women marine biologists Category:American marine biologists Category:University of Miami