FFGS is pleased to announce that Dr. Donald Behringer, Professor of Marine and Disease Ecology, was named a 2025 Fulbright Specialist. The Fulbright Specialist Program promotes biology education around the world by establishing relationships between U.S. and international researchers, educators, and institutions.

Dr. Behringer will travel to the University of Zagreb in Croatia, where he will deliver seminars and lead applied workshops on aquatic disease ecology. Croatia is experiencing a rapid decline in aquatic biodiversity, due in part to the spread of infectious diseases. While researchers at the University of Zagreb have extensive monitoring programs in place, research into the impacts and ecology of emerging diseases is currently very limited. Dr. Behringer’s appointment serves to address this gap.

“I am excited to engage with faculty and students at the University of Zagreb and to expand capacity for a comprehensive approach to research questions in disease ecology,” says Dr. Behringer.

Dr. Behringer will train faculty and students on implementing a research approach to emerging and proliferating diseases in aquatic ecosystems. He will also develop a small-scale pilot research project on signal crayfish, a nonnative species with North American origins that has spread a disease known as the crayfish plague to European crayfish populations.

Dr. Behringer joined FFGS in 2006. He has a joint appointment with the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute, and is an affiliate faculty member of Florida SeaGrant. His research interests include aquatic disease ecology and epidemiology, and marine community resilience and restoration. He previously received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award in 2015, which took him to the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

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