Reef Check Thailand Coordinator Receives Award

Reef Check Thailand coordinator Suchana Apple Chavanich (far left in photo) was recently chosen to be one of four awardees in this year’s “For Women in Science in Thailand” organized by L’OREAL Thailand and Thai UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This is the sixth year the two organizations have teamed up to give research grants to women scientists who are pushing their limits to come up with breakthrough inventions or discoveries. The four honorees will each receive a grant of 200,000 baht (US$6,283) from L’Oreal, which sets aside 3% of the company’s income to research.

When not coordinating Reef Check activities, Dr. Chavanich is an assistant professor at Chulalongkorn University’s department of marine science. Her research focuses on the impact of the December 2004 tsunami on coral reefs and the seafloor at Similan Island, Phang-nga province in Thailand. According to her field surveys, not only corals in shallow waters were affected by the tsunami but also some corals located as deep as 27 meters. Dr. Chavanich will use a coral restoration technique in which eggs and sperm are collected from wild coral colonies and are fertilized in a hatchery. Once larvae are settled on artificial plates, the juvenile corals are raised in a land-based rearing system before they are transplanted back to the reefs.

For more information, please contact Dr. Chavanich at .

Awardees with the Princess of Thailand at the awards ceremony