Kelly Sutherland, PhD

Marine biologist Kelly Sutherland earned a PhD in biological oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In 2020, Sutherland was awarded $1.1 million over three years from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Sutherland, also a member of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, has studied jellyfish in the Pacific Ocean off the U.S. West Coast and Panama and in the Mediterranean Sea off France. The National Science Foundation also supports her work. Awarded the Alec and Kay Keith Professorship for her research on the motion of gelatinous zooplankton, Sutherland’s research looks at how gelatinous marine organisms – or “jellies” as she calls them - have evolved highly efficient means of locomotion. This insight may ultimately inform bioinspired transport systems. Her lab group also studies questions relating to zooplankton. Gelatinous zooplankton play an important role in structuring marine food webs and are increasing in number and frequency in some locations due to human impacts.