Alumni Spotlight on Royale Hardenstine ’13

Royale Hardenstine ’13, PhD candidate Reef Ecology Lab, KAUST shares stories and advice on:

-Choosing a UNE Major

-Living and working in Saudia Arabia

-Leveraging your UNE expierences for what's next

Royale is originally from a small town in Pennsylvania and graduated from UNE in 2013 with a degree in marine biology. In the fall of 2014 she began a master's program in the Reef Ecology Lab under the supervision of Prof. Michael Berumen. The Reef Ecology Lab is part of the Red Sea Research Center at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a university located just north of the major Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah, along the historically understudied Red Sea coastline. After completing her master's titled "A Tale of Two Aggregations: Kinship and Population Genetics of Whale Sharks at Shib Habil, Saudi Arabia, and Mafia Island, Tanzania" in Dec of 2015, she remained at KAUST to pursue a PhD. Since that time, she has been working on using a multi-method approach to analyze whale shark habitat use in Al Lith, Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea overall. She is also active in many other research projects within the lab including: BRUVS surveys in association with Global Fin Print, coral bleaching/recovery surveys, biodiversity collections, and participating in several research cruises along the Red Sea coastline.

Light snacks provided - bring your own lunch!