Mariah Kachmar

Shellfish Health and Disease Technician (Affiliate)

Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Ecosystems and Aquaculture

Aquaculture Systems and Ecology

Assessing Disease Dynamics of Oyster Beds

Email: mariah.kachmar@noaa.gov

Mariah Kachmar

Shellfish Health and Disease Technician (Affiliate)

Education

M.S. Marine Estuarine Environmental Science – University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2022
B.S. Marine Biology and Environmental Science – Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, 2017

Professional History

2020-2022: Maryland Sea Grant Competitive Graduate Research Fellow, University Systems of Maryland
2019 – 2022: Graduate Research Assistant, Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
2018-2019: Environmental Educator, Riverbend Environmental Education Center, Gladwyne, Pennsylvania

While Mariah has a broad background of experience in fisheries and environmental education, her graduate career focused heavily on marine disease ecology within shellfish fisheries and the aquaculture industry. She studied the Ostreid herpesvirus-1 microvariants, their impacts on the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), and prevalence in the Chesapeake Bay. She is also interested in climate impacts on disease dynamics, leading her to conduct a data synthesis on Perkinsus sp. prevalence and infection intensity and climate factors, such as temperature and salinity, over the last 30 years in the Chesapeake Bay. Overall, Mariah’s ambitions lie in expanding her knowledge on host-pathogen-environment relationships with disease systems impacting the east coast of the United States. This knowledge will help her aid the shellfish industry’s productivity and the restoration of wild shellfish populations.

Mariah joined the Milford Laboratory in 2023 and will be working on assessing disease dynamics of natural oyster beds in Long Island Sound to inform oyster restoration and aquaculture disease management.