Carlie’s expertise incorporates marine ecosystem health and environmental molecular biology. Her current research focus is on the detection of waterborne pathogens, target-specific molecular identification, as well as the application of metabarcoding. She is also taking the lead on in-house DNA sequencing for both metagenomic and whole-genome sequencing projects.

Carlie was a Semester by the Sea student and Link intern at Harbor Branch prior to earning her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at FAU in 2013. She then worked briefly in ecotourism before entering FAU’s Biology Masters Program in 2015 with Dr. Peter McCarthy. Her Masters thesis research emphasized on environmental microbiology and molecular biology. Specifically, she investigated the occurrence of enteric bacterial pollution in water and sediment throughout the southern Indian River Lagoon with a combination of standard cultivation and real-time PCR. Upon completion of her Master of Science degree in Biology in 2017, she secured a position as Molecular Biology Technician with Dr. Nick Dickens. Carlie was jointly responsible for establishing the Applied Genomics and Bioinformatics Lab, as well as developing workflow protocols for sample collection and molecular techniques. Her current role as Lab Coordinator involves managing the lab, designing and implementing molecular and -omics research projects, contributing computational support, training undergraduate and graduate students, and helping to expand the range of technologies used in experiments.