Brett Gonzalez

Brett Gonzalez is a Research Fellow at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, affiliated with the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre. He holds a PhD in Biology (University of Copenhagen, 2017), an MSc in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences (Texas A&M University, 2010), and a BSc in Marine Biology (Texas A&M University at Galveston, 2005).

His research focuses on enhancing understanding of rare and unique taxa in underexplored environments like the deep-sea, subterranean caves, pelagic zones, and interstitial habitats. He integrates traditional taxonomy with modern techniques such as high-throughput sequencing, 3D-reconstruction, and advanced microscopy.

Key research areas include evolutionary processes shaping biodiversity, adaptation mechanisms in extreme environments, and biogeographic distributions of marine organisms. Recent work includes studies on scale worm diversity in hadal zones, cryptic species in subterranean estuaries, and molecular delimitation of leech species.

Active Research Projects:

• Characterisation of high-resolution tubular eyes in Acoetidae scale worms (2025) - Chief Investigator at University of Western Australia.

External Affiliations:

• Research Associate, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (2023–).
• Former Postdoctoral Researcher (2018–2023), Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.