Prof. Baums serves as Associate Professor of Molecular Ecology in the Department of Biology at Penn State. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Miami using microsatellite markers to look at clonal population structure and geographic variation in the Caribbean elkhorn coral Acropora palmata. She completed a postdoc at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. Her research involves developing and applying molecular tools to understand the consequences of biogeography, population structure, and mating patterns to the survival and evolution of marine organisms.