Nichole Price

Nichole Price

Senior Research Scientist | Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

Nichole Price, Ph.D. is a benthic marine ecologist with an interest in how global change phenomena, like ocean acidification and warming, can alter bottom-dwelling species interactions, community dynamics, and ecosystem function in shallow coastal regimes. Her work focuses primarily on the eco-physiology of seaweeds and calcifying invertebrates and their current and future role in dissolved inorganic carbon and nutrient cycling.

Price utilizes state-of-the-art analytical tools including prototype autonomous oceanographic instrument packages in field campaigns, develops custom experimental aquaria in the lab, and applies emerging technological approaches (like environmental DNA) to tackle fundamental ecological research questions about population dynamics, biological feedbacks, and ecosystem services. Price also applies her expertise to explore mitigation strategies for coastal acidification (the ‘Halo’ effect) and climate change (e.g., blue carbon and uses of farmed seaweeds). She has focused on these topics primarily on tropical coral reefs and temperate systems and extrapolates her results from each biome to regional and global scales using statistical modelling.

Price holds a B.A., Biology and Math from Connecticut College, a M.S. in Applied Statistics and Probability from Univ. California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and a Ph.D., in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology from UCSB.