Biography

Frankie Lopez (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Menden-Deuer Plankton Ecology lab at the Graduate School of Oceanography. Her research focuses on the Northeast US Continental Shelf, as part of the Northeast US Shelf Long Term Ecological Research (NES LTER) program, investigating the predator-prey dynamics of the plankton at the base of the food web. The goal of this work is to understand how these critical ecological processes are influenced by the environment, and how the planktonic food web contributes to the carbon and biogeochemical cycles in the ocean.