Madeleine Hardt

I’ve been curious about the ocean and marine life for as long as I can remember. My childhood nickname was ’squid’ because, according to my father, I’m ‘all arms and legs’ and I can’t survive for very long outside of the water.

I am interested in the thermal tolerance of corals in Kāne’ohe Bay. My current project focuses on identifying corals with high thermal tolerance and bleaching resistance for reef building and restoration purposes. My background is in coral paleoclimate, which I studied at Georgia Tech for four years prior to joining the ToBo lab in 2022. More specifically, I was studying the impact of thermal stress on coral geochemical proxies for temperature and hydrology in the central Tropical Pacific. My love and curiosity for corals (specifically) began in 2016, while I was studying excessive algae growth on sea fans in the British Virgin Islands. Outside of the lab, I enjoy free diving, tanning, running, rock climbing, and keeping up with the Kardashians.