Ashley Dungan earned her B.S. in Biology in 2011 from SUNY Brockport, NY, USA, and her M.S. in Marine Biology from Nova Southeastern University, FL, USA in 2015. After completion of her degree, Ashley worked for two years as a Staff Chemist for Mote Marine Laboratory in the Ocean Acidification program where she studied the effects of climate change on corals used in restoration. She is currently a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Melbourne, Australia working with Prof.’s Madeleine van Oppen and Linda Blackall. Her current research focuses on the development of a bacterial probiotic to mitigate the effects of thermal stress on corals using the model organism Exaiptasia pallida. Ashley’s research interests are in the functional roles of bacteria in symbiosis with their host and the  application of assisted evolution to coral restoration strategies.