Dr. Emma Perry, University of Maine
Tardigrades are everywhere!
Tardigrades, aka “waterbears,” are a little-studied phylum, although they are widespread. They are members of the understudied meiofaunal ecosystem. I will share my progress in discovering the biodiversity of the tardigrades around us and some new species I have described along the way.
Emma Perry is the Electron Microscope Laboratory Manager, at UMaine. She is a microscopist and invertebrate zoologist who studies tardigrades. She graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biological Sciences (Zoology) in 1999 from the University of Exeter, UK and her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of South Florida in 1997. She was Professor of Marine Biology at Unity College from 1997 – 2019, before coming to the University of Maine to run the Electron Microscope Facility.
