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NSF Grants Will Help Unravel Mysteries of Sea Stars, Jellyfish

October 2, 2017

The National Science Foundation recently awarded Professor Michael Dawson $900,000 to study some rather mysterious marine phenomena.

Dawson received $700,000 — part of a three-year, $1.2 million grant awarded to Dawson and collaborators at UC Santa Cruz, the University of Georgia and Cornell University — to investigate the repercussions of the 2013 outbreak of sea star wasting disease (SSWD), a marine pandemic that killed 90 percent of ochre sea stars along North America’s Pacific coast.

He received an additional $200,000 to collaborate with Professor Michael Beman to study the disappearance and enigmatic re-emergence of jellyfish in Palau’s Jellyfish Lake.