Steven Roberts, the Kenneth K. Chew Endowed Professor in Aquaculture, is a conservation physiologist who uses molecular approaches to study issues that affect aquaculture and natural resource conservation. Working principally with the shellfish in Puget Sound, he looks at how environmental change can influence animal physiology, from the nucleotide to organismal level. In addition, he studies the native and rare Olympia oyster, considering the potential effects that mixing wild and aquaculture stocks might have on the species’ overall health. He is also tackling the problem of larval mortality that has lately plagued shellfish growers throughout Washington state, considering the role that ocean acidification and emerging diseases might play.