A Lifelong Love of the Ocean
Growing up, Colin Howe loved the water and the ocean. From snorkeling in the Caribbean at eight-years-old to scuba diving at fourteen in Australia, Howe has always felt at home in the water. By the time he began his first year at Old Dominion University in 2012, he decided his desired career path—marine science.
“By the time I was a freshman in college, I was convinced that marine science was what I wanted to pursue,” Howe said. “That was kind of the impetus—the cultural connected roots, the confidence and experience I had built up previously through both being back home with my folks and traveling abroad.”
Fast forward to 2025, where Howe is a doctoral student in biology at Penn State in former Professor of Biology Mónica Medina’s lab, studying coral and how the bacteria that live in and on corals can influence their health and physiology. He is particularly interested in understanding how these coral “microbiomes” are structured and identifying the forces that shape coral microbial communities.
Before he began his doctoral degree, Howe attended the University of the Virgin Islands to earn a master’s degree in marine and environmental science. As he was working on his master’s, he visited Penn State through the National Science Foundation’s Bridge to Ph.D. Program, an initiative to retrain underrepresented minorities in STEM. During this experience, he met research faculty, including Medina, and heard firsthand from graduate students and postdocs. Then, in 2020, Howe started at Penn State in her lab.
Howe had a full circle moment during the first two years of his doctoral program when he was selected as a mentor for that same Bridge to Ph.D. Program. He helped guide graduate students through classes and workshops, as well as paired them with different research labs at Penn State.
“In 2022 the program was in person, which was the same kind of exposure that I got as a master’s student,” Howe said. “I was able to help mentor the following generation not only from the Caribbean, but the Indo-Pacific as well.”
This past summer, Howe collaborated with Julia Cole, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, to study her approach to paleoclimatology, the study of the climate history of Earth. During the week he spent with Cole, they were able to essentially go back in time using a CT scan of the coral to create a 3D model of the skeleton. These models reveal each decade of growth through annual growth bands, sort of like rings in a tree, that go as back as far as the 1950s. According to Howe, Cole’s expertise will help them connect historical environmental conditions to historical coral microbiomes. Using ancient DNA, they can sample bacteria and other microorganisms called archaea trapped in coral skeletons prior to major global bleaching events — stressful events where corals expel the microorganisms inside them and turn white. This process allows them to evaluate what microbes are present and how these communities change over time.
Howe hopes that his work will expand the public’s awareness of microbe’s influence on coral health and physiology and provide governments and restoration practitioners the tools necessary to address the severe decline in coral reef ecosystems.
“Another huge aspect on why I chose to do marine science is through a cultural desire to protect marine ecosystems like those in Dominica or Trinidad, where my father is from,” Howe added. “I felt like marine science was my best avenue to do that.”