University Department of Biological Sciences assistant professor Morgan Kelly was one of 126 recipients of the 2017 Sloan Research Fellowship given by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for her research and extensive work in the field of ocean sciences.
Nate Williams, the communications manager of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation communications, said the awards are given to early career researchers in teaching positions at universities in the United States or Canada. The foundation awards $60,000 to the recipients to further their research endeavors.
“The goal of the Sloan Research Fellowship is to stimulate fundamental research by giving support to the brightest young minds working in science today and to give it in a particularly unencumbered way that allows researchers to direct funds in a way they think it is best used,” Williams said. “The idea is to give a small amount of money in a key point of a young researcher’s career that will really make a difference and that will hopefully spur exciting new advances that will help advance the borders of human knowledge.”
The recipients are from one of eight scientific and technical fields — chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics. Williams said the foundation gave eight awards in Kelly’s field.
Kelly, a marine biologist, studies how marine species adapt to their environments and how changes in their environments affect them. She said her research involves understanding how climate change and freshwater diversions might affect species in the Gulf of Mexico.
“In our research, we put oysters from different populations out into the environment to study how they react to various levels of salinity and temperature,” Kelly said in a press release. “We want to know which oyster populations can best adapt genetically to a changing environment.”
Kelly said the research money she received will go toward research supplies and continuing the work she and her graduate students are doing. Having this award is not just important to her but to the University as well, she said.
“It brings a lot more attention to our lab and our biology department and our university because it helps to get national recognition for our research,” Kelly said. “When possible graduate students are coming to look at our department, having national attention for the research in our department helps us to recruit really excellent graduate students into our program.”
Kelly said she will continue to apply for grants to fund the research she and her graduate students are doing. Kelly said she has two research questions she wants to address through her research.
“I really want to understand how oysters in the Gulf of Mexico tolerate changes in salinity and whether we can identify some strains of oysters that are basically superstars for dealing with low salinity to help managers plan for the effects of freshwater diversion,” Kelly said. “Second, I’m really curious about how marine life tolerates changes in temperature. In our work with this tiny crustacean, this copepod, we’re trying to identify the genes that allow them to tolerate heat stress. My second research career goal is to really try to go after those genes and figure out which genes they are.”

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Jordan Marcell

Assistant professor Morgan Kelly at work in her lab on Monday, March 6, 2017 in the Life Sciences Annex.