Katey Lesneski is a third-year Marine Biology Ph.D. candidate at Boston University. She is studying wound healing and heat stress tolerance in the endangered staghorn coral. She combines fieldwork and field experiments in Turneffe Atoll, Belize, with laboratory-based experiments and protein expression studies to better understand this important reef-building organism. Katey is an American Academy of Underwater Sciences Scientific Dive Leader, and a PADI Divemaster, and has worked in the diving industry in the Florida Keys, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Katey plans to become a career research scientist, aiding in active reef restoration projects in the Tropical Western Atlantic or Caribbean.