RSRC KAUST PhD student Jose Filho is the world champion of the 2022 InnovateFPGA Design Contest, organized by Intel Corporation and Terasic Inc. and sponsored by high-profile companies Microsoft, Analog Devices, Arrow Electronics, Macnica, Mouser Electronics, and Digi-Key Electronics.

Fiddler crabs burrowing beneath arid mangrove forests help bring beneficial bacteria to an ecosystem in dire need of nutrients. Plant growth in arid mangrove forests is limited by a lack of rainfall, poor nutrient availability, and high soil salinity.

Dr. Fabio Marchese is a marine geomorphologist in the Red Sea Research Center's Habitat and Benthic Biodiversity Lab, where he uses his specialized seafloor and marine habitat mapping skills to shed light on how geomorphic processes create and shape current seafloor morphologies in the Red Sea.

Beneficial Microbes for Marine Organisms (BMMO), an international network of collaborators with expertise in crosscutting areas of probiotic research, have published a paper in Nature Microbiology, Harnessing the microbiome to prevent global biodiversity loss, that provides a science-based framework to accelerate the responsible research and development of microbiome solutions.

New technologies and expertise are being applied to study areas of the Red Sea, thanks to a partnership between Saudi Arabia and Japan. Researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have teamed with engineers and scientists at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), a leading institute in deep marine science, to research shallow reef and deep-water environments using Japanese specialty equipment and the KAUST-owned research vessel, RV Thuwal.

Working in the natural environment often presents some interesting challenges, but many minds make light work. “Our complementary skillsets brought remote sensing and marine science together for this project,” says Aislinn Dunne, a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Burton Jones at KAUST’s Red Sea Research Center.

Today, we visited Dr. Ananya Ashok, a recent PhD graduate from the Biological Oceanography Lab led by Prof. Susana Agusti. She is now preparing to leave KAUST to a new adventure in the land of the channels, tulips, and windmills – the Netherlands. But not before sharing with us all the details of her prolific PhD…

We are glad to announce that the Red Sea Research Center will be one of the sponsors of the 15th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS), which will take place from July 3-8 in Bremen, Germany.

Happy to announce that RSRC faculty member Prof. Raquel Peixoto will give a plenary talk on Tuesday, July 4th, and several center students will also present posters and introduce their research.

A blueprint for measuring calcium carbonate on the ocean floor could help marine scientists monitor coral reef health around the globe. Climate change and pollution from human activities are irreversibly changing many marine habitats, particularly coral reefs. To assess and mitigate future impacts, ecologists must understand how these ecosystems are functioning right now.

With great pride, we are pleased to announce that one of our center's most recent papers, led by Freya Womersley and with a whole host of other collaborators, including Prof. Carlos Duarte and Prof. Michael Berumen, has been selected for the cover of the PNAS journal – exploring the movement ecology of whale sharks and a potential cause of their decline.

To celebrate World Ocean Day, the Red Sea Research Center hosted 70 students from TKS on June 8. The students from 5th to 7th grades learned a lot of things about the Red Sea, enjoyed the underwater VR experience, and visited coral nursery aquariums at the CMR.

Avid fishers from the KAUST shoreline know well the three common species of Red Sea sea bream: the goldsilk or picnic sea bream (Acanthopagrus berda), the double-bar sea bream (Acanthopagrus bifasciatus) and the haffara sea bream (Rhabdosargus haffara). And now they know one more thanks to the Vice President for Research Donal Bradley, physicist and “piscatorial ichthyologist” (studier of fish by fishing).

Our oceans are not just beautiful sources of entertainment and recreation, but they help regulate the climate and are an important source of food and homes to diverse marine life. The dedicated scientists at KAUST work tirelessly to not only preserve marine life but to find solutions to climate change and human intrusion. They have moved their research out of the laboratory and into the Red Sea. Take a dive into this NatGeo episode and find out how KAUST professors are making waves in the field of marine science and technology.

We are very happy to share the news that our lab manager Fran Aparicio was recently recognized by KAUST HSE department as a recipient of the first Delta Award. This is presented "in recognition of the positive impact LSRs have on our efforts to build a strong safety culture in our labs". Congratulations to Fran for this well-deserved award and thank him for his leadership, hard work, and dedication to keeping our operations safe and productive.

In November 2021, a team of researchers from KAUST, in collaboration with the US-based Beneath the Waves organization, spent a week on a boat off the coast of Great Exuma in the Bahamas. While the team is more at home in the Red Sea, this trip had an important goal: to characterize in detail the seagrass ecosystem of the Bahamas Banks for the first time. The data collected forms part of a wider project aiming to gain UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the region.

Dr. Helena Villela is a research scientist in the Red Sea Research Center's Marine Microbiomes Lab, where she is working under the supervision of Professor Raquel Peixoto. Her primary research interests lie in investigating marine microbes that can be applied to the protection and recovery of the environment, mitigating the negative impacts of the human activities.

We took some time to talk to Nathalia Delgadillo, currently a PhD student at Prof. Raquel Peixoto Marine Microbiomes lab. Previously, she did her Bachelor’s degree in Biology at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she won a national competition of the best bachelor’s thesis, sponsored by the biggest Oil Company of Colombia.

We caught up with Migle Kotryna Konciute (aka, Catherine), a PhD student from Prof. Aranda’s Symbiomics lab from the Red Sea Research Center at KAUST. Our objective was to discover the exciting world of the Aiptasia, as a model to study the metabolic interactions between Symbiodiniaceae algae and corals.

Prof. Raquel Peixoto, KAUST associate professor of marine science at the Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), is recognized as a Fellow of the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS) for her contributions to the field of coral probiotics. ICRS is the principal scientific association dedicated to coral reef research worldwide. Its mission is to promote the development and dissemination of science toward securing a future with coral reefs.

ince the beginning of her PhD in 2018, Aislinn Dunne from Prof. Burton H. Jones’ Integrated Ocean Processes group, has been following fish and what they eat throughout the Red Sea. She was interested in how coral reef fishes interact with other coastal habitats throughout their lives.