S. Carter Oleckna is a second‑year Ph.D. student at the University of Florida studying how environmental stressors such as ocean warming, excess nutrients, and herbivore grazing affect the defensive chemicals in turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum). Growing up fishing in Southwest Florida inspired his pursuit of marine research and conservation. With the support of this scholarship, he will conduct fieldwork along Florida’s coast to track how these environmental factors influence the seagrass’s defensive compounds and to explore how these defenses can be manipulated to improve seagrass restoration techniques.

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