Andia Chaves Fonnegra

Andia Chaves Fonnegra is a Colombian

Fonnegra earned her bachelor's degree (2003) in marine biology from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University and her master's degree (2006) in marine biology from the National University of Colombia.^[1] In 2007 she taught at Colombia's Universidad Pedagogic Nacional before moving to the University of Alberta where she worked from 2007 to 2008. In 2009 she moved to Florida and became a graduate student at Nova Southeastern University, where she graduated in 2014 with a PhD in oceanography and marine biology.^[1][2] Fonnegra's dissertation was "Increase of Excavating Sponges on Caribbean Coral Reefs: Reproduction, Dispersal, and Coral Deterioration".^[3]

Fonnegra was a postdoctoral researcher at the Coral Reef Restoration, Assessment & Monitoring (CRRAM) Laboratory - Nova Southeastern University in 2014-2015, later at the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES) - University of the Virgin Islands in 2016-2017, and also at the Department of Biomolecular Sciences - University of Mississippi in 2018. In 2018, she became an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University, where she has a joint appointment between the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and the Harriet Wilkes Honors College.^[2] She is known for her research on the marine sponge Cliona delitrix,^[4] an organism that grows between the calcium carbonate that forms the skeleton of coral reefs and that, through an excavating action, gradually deteriorates the coral.^[5] In the Caribbean Sea the development of this sponge has accelerated in recent years, resulting in the gradual erosion of corals, altering the ecosystem.^[6][7]

Awards and honors

• 2002 – SIGMA XI Grant Award,
  Scientific Research Society^[8]
• 2006 – Meritorious Mention Master's Thesis, Universidad Nacional de Colombia^[citation needed]
• 2008 – Donald Ross Academic Merit, University of Alberta^[9]
• 2010 – NSU Chancellor´s Faculty Research and Development Grant, Nova Southeastern University^[10]
• 2011 –
  L'Oréal-UNESCO Scholarship for Women in Science^[11][12][6]
• 2014 – Student Life Achievement Award, Nova Southeastern University[13]
• 2019 – Gulf Research Program’s Early-Career Research Fellowships of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.^[14]
• 2023 NSF Early Career Award, Florida Atlantic University^[15]

Selected publications

• Chaves-Fonnegra, Andia; Castellanos, Leonardo; Zea, Sven; Duque, Carmenza; Rodríguez, Jaime; Jiménez, Carlos (2008). "Clionapyrrolidine A—A Metabolite from the Encrusting and Excavating Sponge Cliona tenuis that Kills Coral Tissue upon Contact". Journal of Chemical Ecology. 34 (12): 1565–1574.
  S2CID 21404694
  .
• Chaves-Fonnegra, Andia; Zea, Sven (2011). "Coral colonization by the encrusting excavating Caribbean sponge Cliona delitrix". Marine Ecology. 32 (2): 162–173.
  doi:10.1111/j.1439-0485.2010.00416.x
  .
• Chaves-Fonnegra, Andia; Maldonado, Manuel; Blackwelder, Patricia; Lopez, Jose V. (2015). "Asynchronous reproduction and multi-spawning in the coral-excavating sponge Cliona delitrix". Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. 96 (2): 515–528.
  S2CID 52486029
  .
• Chaves-Fonnegra, A. (2014). Increase of excavating sponges on Caribbean coral reefs: Reproduction, dispersal, and coral deterioration. Dissertation. Nova Southeastern University.
• Chaves-Fonnegra, Andia; Feldheim, Kevin A.; Secord, Jesse; Lopez, Jose V. (2015). "Population structure and dispersal of the coral-excavating sponge Cliona delitrix". Molecular Ecology. 24 (7): 1447–1466.
  S2CID 4492547
  .
• Brandt, Marilyn E.; Olinger, Lauren K.; Chaves-Fonnegra, Andia; Olson, Julie B.; Gochfeld, Deborah J. (2019). "Coral recruitment is impacted by the presence of a sponge community". Marine Biology. 166 (4).
  S2CID 91626018
  .