He is the senior member of the Biology Department, having joined the faculty in 2003 after serving five years at the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine & Coastal Sciences. An internationally recognized academic and research institute, the Baruch Institute conducts basic research on environmental processes, tidal, estuarine and coastal ocean environments. It is the marine biological research component of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He is currently collaborating with his colleagues at USCB and the Baruch Institute Field Lab in Georgetown to study the genetic impacts of dispersal and recruitment patterns in fiddler crabs in the river-dominated estuaries of the southeastern U.S.