PACCT - Meet Angela Cristini

Meet: Angela Cristini

Marine Biologist

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Angela Cristini has been a Professor of Biology at Ramapo College of New Jersey for the past 21 years. She has also served as the Assistant Director for Environmental Research in the Division of Science and Research at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on an 18 month sabbatical from Ramapo. Dr. Cristini has been a member of Governor Whitman’s Dredged Materials Management Team and is an advisor to the New Jersey Legislature on environmental issues.

Dr. Cristini's research centers around the interactions of aquatic invertebrates and their environment. She has had several research grants that examined the effects of toxic chemicals, such as benzene, dioxin, and oil on physiological processes and growth in blue crabs and lobsters as well as in fresh water and estuarine mollusks.

Dr. Cristini is also involved in science education; she is the project director for two National Science Foundation grants and one grant from the New Jersey Department of Education which utilize remote sensing technology to improve the teaching of environmental and earth science in schools in the NY/NJ metropolitan area.

What did you want to be when you were 10 years old?

Being part of an extended Italian family I had lots of cousins who stayed with us at the shore during the week while our fathers were working in the city. Everyone showed up on Friday night to spend the weekend relaxing. Relaxing in an Italian family always involved eating - and at the shore house we ate lots of sea food. One of the children’s jobs was to catch clams and crabs for Friday night’s dinner so I spent many hours on the Bay in pursuit of easy to catch clams and big, fast, feisty blue crabs. Often times we caught flounder, blowfish, eels, and all kinds of other fish but I was always fascinated by those beautiful crabs that could see you coming and swim well enough to avoid your net.

I know the shore and all the animals had a big influence on me because by the time I was ten, I knew I wanted to be a marine Biologist. I read Rachael Carson’s “The Sea Around Us” and I was really hooked.

What educational background do you have, and is it typical of your field?

All through high school I read anything I could about marine animals and I chose a College - Northeastern University - because it had a marine station and as part of the Co-operative Education Program I could work as a biologist during my college career. However, the University could not find me a job as a marine biologist - I worked in a hospital until I was lucky enough to land a job with the US Environmental Protection Agency working in lakes and streams in NY and NJ - at least I was in the water - but it was not salty enough. Then I got a job at Sandy Hook Marine Laboratory identifying worms. Marine worms are really beautiful but when the professor I worked for asked me to choose an animal for an individual project - my career as a crab specialist started. I received my Ph.D. from the City University of New York in 1977, and received a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of West Florida.

What kinds of things do you find most exciting about your work?

I have worked with crabs for more than 25 years and I am still fascinated by how they live, grow, and communicate with each other. I have spent many hours studying the effects of chemicals that people produce on the biology of these animals and their close relatives - lobsters and shrimp. Sometimes I even work on clams - It seems I just can’t get away from sea food.

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