Michael Cavazos

Michael V Cavazos
Research Associate, MS Student
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Harte Research Institute Rm 317
Email: mailto: mcavazos6@islander.tamucc.edu

Biography

Around the age of twelve my grandfather gave me a book on the wild life of North America. It contained a section on fish and started with Lythrypnus dalli, the Bluebanded goby. I was hooked and I knew instantly what I wanted to do the rest of my life. After spending 10 years in various industries I took a vacation with my family to Oahu and on vacation I found myself in front of Dr. Jack Randall. After a discussion with him and a lot of encouragement from my wife and children we all packed up and moved to Corpus Christi and now I find myself fulfilling a childhood dream. My thesis research is in coral disease but I could not pass up any opportunity to work with gobies and if all works out I will always somehow be working with or around these fascinating creatures for the rest of my life.

Research Interests
My research interests are too broad to be covered in one life time but this is a snap shot of my top interests: cryptobenthic fishes associated with toxic and diseased cnidarians, systematics of gobies, scorpionfishes and stonefishes of the western Pacific and microbial assemblages in mucous layer of cryptobenthic fishes.