Monmouth University

Dr. Chris Haak was following his desire to spend more time on the water and less time in front of a computer. That plan backfired when he left a career in film and television to study marine science at UMass Amherst, where his doctoral work focused on bonefish and other species exploiting shallow nearshore habitats in the Bahamas and Puerto Rico.

Chris’s principle research interests lie in two somewhat disparate yet complementary areas of study: (1) examining the role of hydrodynamic factors, such as wave and tide-driven water movement, in governing the habitat use patterns, energy expenditures, and distributions of fishes; and (2) evaluating the implications of species interactions, in particular interspecific sociality and information transfer, for the behavior, group structure, and ultimately evolution of fishes. In studying these phenomena, Chris hopes to better understand and/or predict the ways that different species and assemblages thereof will respond to a changing world.