Keshini Beetul
I am an islander - originally from the beautiful island of Mauritius. I have a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from the University of Mauritius, and a Master of Science in Biotechnology and Management from the University of Glasgow. My research interests lie within the realm of the application of marine microalgal biomarkers to better understand symbiosis within holobionts of reef-building scleractinian corals, and subsequently the mechanism of coral bleaching at single cell (microalgal) level.
For my master’s thesis, under the supervision of Dr. Nicholas Kamenos and Dr. Jaime Toney, I used lipid biomarkers as proxies to hypothesise the potential role of energy-rich lipids in compromising symbiosis within an Acropora sp. holobiont, subsequently leading to coral bleaching, when subjected to thermal stress.
I stayed on in the BECS lab as a Research Intern for two additional months to consolidate my knowledge of and laboratory skills for the analysis of lipid biomarkers. Under the supervision of Dr. Jaime Toney and Mike Marcell Zwick (BECS PhD candidate), I worked on the application of lipid biomarkers for paleoenvironmental reconstruction in the Canadian Prairies.
