Stony coral tissue loss disease has become the leading cause of reef-building coral decline in the Caribbean. Dr. Brandt will discuss its emergence and impact on the reefs of the United States Virgin Islands and the remarkable response of our relatively small community to the threat of this virulent disease. A Research Associate Professor of Marine and Environmental Science at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI). She fell in love with the Caribbean in college when she visited a childhood friend and pen pal in Trinidad. She went on to study Caribbean coral disease ecology while earning her Bachelor’s degree from New York University and then her Ph.D. from the University of Miami. She moved to St. Thomas to join the research faculty in the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies at UVI in 2010.

Dr. Brandt’s research focuses on understanding how disease is damaging coral reefs and how coral conservation and restoration can reverse that damage. She is the Research Team Lead and an Executive Team member for the U.S. Virgin Islands Coral Disease Advisory Committee and she directs the VI Reef Response program which is focused on science-based coral restoration in the northern U.S. Virgin Islands. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx