Instructor
Christopher Wall Ph.D.
Bio
Chris Wall, Ph.D., is a physiological ecologist specializing in the study of coral reefs symbioses between invertebrate animals and their prokaryote and eukaryote microbial partners. Dr. Wall’s research program is broadly focused on the coral-Symbiodiniaceae symbiosis, where he uses stable isotopes and molecular techniques to understand coral energetics and nutritional plasticity, symbiont functional diversity, and the mechanisms that support holobiont resilience to environmental stress. Dr. Wall received his Ph.D. in Marine Biology as an Environmental Protection Agency STAR Research Fellow at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at University of Hawai‘i Mānoa and the University of California San Diego. His recent works have extended beyond coral reefs, focusing on terrestrial subsidies and their influence on aquatic systems, and how stochastic and deterministic factors act to structure microbial communities and host-microbe interactions. As of 2024, he has returned to the University of Hawai'i as a Research Faculty, continuing his research on coral reef ecosystems.As an instructor, Dr. Wall has taught courses (Botany, Biology, Marine Biology, Topics in Conservation, Geography, Microbiology) at two-year and four-year colleges in traditional classroom, as well as online. As a graduate student, he served as a teaching assistant for 6 years teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in marine biology and oceanography.