Chemistry Ph.D. Candidate Wins Prestigious Award for Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Research

Congratulations to Alejandra Coronel-Zegarra, a chemistry Ph.D. candidate in the Schmidt College of Science, who attended the Microscopy and Microanalysis (M&M) conference on July 28 in Salt Lake City, where she was presented with a 2025 M&M Student Award. Her paper, “Multiscale Chemistry and Structure of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Lesions,” was selected as one of the few awardees from a pool of over 200 proceedings. 

“It feels great to be recognized for the award since I put in a lot of hard work into my research,” expressed Coronel-Zegarra. “I hope this can help me create more opportunities to excel in my career as a scientist!” 

The goal of her research is to investigate how Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) affects the coral skeleton and skeletal growth by studying changes in chemical composition and crystallographic properties using correlative imaging techniques like electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy. 

“Understanding how SCTLD can impact coral biomineralization can increase our knowledge about SCLTD, which still has many unknown aspects, and further help guide conservation efforts,” noted Coronel-Zegarra. 

The M&M 2025 conference, hosted by the Microscopy Society of America, is the largest scientific meeting and gathering of microscopy and microanalysis professionals, academics, technicians, students and exhibitors in the world. The event provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of a wide range of microscopy and microanalysis techniques and their application to the biological and physical sciences.