Kevin Marquez Johnson
California Sea Grant Extension Specialist
Kevin Johnson, PhD, is a California Sea Grant Extension Specialist based at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Johnson is a marine biologist working to understand the genetic potential for adapation to environmental stress in aquaculturally important marine invertebrates. Johnson seeks to build collaborations with students and faculty at Cal Poly, aquaculture growers, Indigenous nations, state and federal agencies, and local stakeholders. Through these collaboration, his work will focus on emergent issues in California and will highlight educational and career opportunities in aquaculture. Johnson earned his PhD from the UC Santa Barbara and his BS from CSU Monterey Bay.
Expertise
- Shellfish aquaculture
- Conservation aquaculture
- Population Genetics
- Climate Change
- Larval culturing
Extension and Outreach
Johnson is committed to education and outreach with a focus on engaging with community college transfer students and under-represented groups in STEM. Johnson teaches courses at Cal Poly and mentors undergraduate students in research and career planning. Johnson will be looking to develop community outreach projects aimed at briniging awareness to local issues impacting aquaculture and fisheries in the central coast regions.
Featured Outreach Products
As a PhD candidate at UCSB, Johnson collaborated wit the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and high school students in the Quasars to Sea Stars program at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History to develop an outreach video highlighting the effects of ocean acidification and warming on marine phytoplankton and zooplankton.
Recent Publications
Johnson KM, Sirovy KA, Casas SM, La Peyre JF, and Kelly MW. (2020). Characterizing the epigenetic and transcriptomic responses to Perkinsus marinus infection in the eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, 598. doi:10.3389/FMARS.2020.00598
Johnson, KM and Kelly MW (2020). Population specific epigenetic variation in the eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica along a salinity gradient in Coastal Louisiana. Evolutionary Applications 2020; 00: 1– 15. doi:10.1111/eva.12912.
Johnson KM and Hofmann GE (2020). Combined stress of ocean acidification and warming influence survival and drives differential gene expression patterns in the Antarctic pteropod, Limacina helicina antarctica. Conservation Physiology, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2020 doi:10.1093/conphys/coaa013
Jones HR, Johnson KM, and Kelly MW (2019). Synergistic effects of temperature and salinity on the gene expression and physiology of Crassostrea virginica. Integrative and Comparative Biology, doi:10.1093/icb/icz035.
Johnson KM, Wong JM, Hoshijima U, Sugano CS, and Hofmann GE (2019). Seasonal transcriptomes of the Antarctic pteropod, Limacina helicina antarctica. Marine Environmental Research, 143, 49-59, doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2018.10.006.