Keri O'Neil
Program Manager
Coral Conservation Program
Keri O’Neil is the Senior Scientist and Program Manager for the Coral Conservation Program at The Florida Aquarium. She has over 20 years of experience in coral husbandry, and her work focuses on coral sexual reproduction, managed breeding, health, and optimizing the survival and growth of juvenile corals in ex-situ coral nurseries. She began her career as an aquarist at the National Aquarium for 10 years, and she then returned to graduate school at Nova Southeastern University where she completed her Master’s thesis on optimizing culture conditions for Acropora cervicornis in ex-situ nurseries. Keri started at The Florida Aquarium in 2016 and has worked to develop a large managed breeding program for species native to Florida. In 2019, her team at The Florida Aquarium achieved the first aquarium induced spawning of an Atlantic coral, in conditions that will allow the offspring to be re-introduced to the wild. Her team has spawned 14 species of coral and has raised and released over 15,000 aquarium-reared sexual recruits back into Florida waters. She is a member of the Coral Rescue and Propagation Team in Florida and an active participant in the Coral Restoration Consortium.
