Leyia Johnson - Week One

Hello all,

My name is Leyia Johnson. I have recently graduated from Bellevue College with my second Associate Degree. This most recent degree is an Associate of Science (AS): Track II: Physics, Atmospheric Sciences and Engineering (Physical Sciences).

(For those of you that are curious, my first degree was also earned at Bellevue College in the spring of 2009 through the Running Start program. The Running Start program allows students in grades eleven and twelve to attend courses at Washington state colleges in lieu of high school. Therefore, I earned my high school diploma and my Associate in Arts & Sciences – Direct Transfer Agreement (AAS-DTA) simultaneously at the conclusion of my grade twelve year.)

This autumn, I will be attending the University of Washington Seattle as an Oceanography major. I intend to be a double major in Physical Oceanography and Biochemistry with a minor in Quantitative Science. I am thrilled to be a part of the program that sparked my interest in pursuing marine science.

This spark occurred several years ago in Washington DC while exploring in the Smithsonian. At the National Museum of Natural History, there is an exhibit on hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents are springs of hot, mineral- and gas-rich seawater found on some oceanic ridges in zones of active seafloor spreading. I was fascinated by the communities of life found at the bottom of the ocean that relied not on photosynthesis, but chemosynthesis. Chemosynthesis is the synthesis of organic compounds from inorganic compounds using energy stored in inorganic substances. The exhibit sign referenced research done through the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington Seattle. The intrigue of this program lead to my decision to leave the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia Vancouver and pursue an education in marine science, starting at Bellevue College.

At Bellevue College, I took Introduction to Oceanography with Marina Halverson. It was through her that I learned about Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence – Pacific Partnerships (COSEE-Pacific Partnerships) “Promoting Research Investigations in the Marine Environment” (PRIME) funded by the National Science Foundation. I am excited for the opportunity to work in research. I love learning and now have the glorious opportunity to participate in the discovery.

It is only the first week and I have learned so much already!

My mentor is Dr. Alan Shanks at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), University of Oregon. So far he has been wonderful in introducing us, (my fellow intern in the Shanks lab is Peter Sheesley), to the research environment and process. The first day Alan gave us several academic articles he authored to read. These articles lead us through years of his past research.

It was widely believed that the larvae of intertidal invertebrates (animals lacking backbones) were swept offshore during upwelling and back to shore during downwelling. Upwelling is a circulation pattern in which deep, cold water moves toward the surface and downwelling is a circulation pattern in which surface water moves vertically downward. A study Alan L. Shanks and R. Kipp Shearman conducted provided evidence against this hypothesis. They found that upwelling and downwelling had no effect on the cross-shelf distribution of the larvae of intertidal invertebrates. This lead to further research on what did have an effect on their distribution.

The Shanks lab has been linking the dispersal and recruitment of the larvae to nearshore physical oceanographic features.

One of my main interests in oceanography is understanding how systems function. It is interesting to learn how the geologic features effect the fluid dynamics and how the fluid dynamics effect the biological populations through larvae dispersal. I am so elated to be working on this project.

Thus far, I have learned how to cast a well bailer cast (a clear, plastic cylindrical tube) and retrieve a water sample from it. I have retrieved both a phytoplankton (tiny photosynthetic organisms that are suspended in the ocean) sample and a zooplankton (animal members of the plankton community) sample from a plankton net (a conical net made of fine mesh) and identified organisms in both samples. I am told that we will be counting Pseudo-nitzschia. Pseudo-nitzschia is a genus of diatom that produces a neurotoxin that causes humans to permanently lose short-term memory.

We have also emptied a light trap. The light trap is a large plastic bottle with holes in the sides and a light inside in order to attract crab. It mainly catches crab, but everything caught is documented. When we emptied the trap we found a fish! Alan informed us that it was a cabezon (a type of sculpin) and that they can grow to be enormous, (twenty-five pounds according to Wikipedia). The tiny cabezon we caught is our pet now. It lives in the lab in the sea table.

Unrelated to our project: Near our dorms we also found a newt, but we returned it to the creek nearby. I named it Newt Scamander for exploring the beasts to be found outside the creek.
Be sure to check back next week for another update on my activities here at OIMB!

Peter Sheesley - Pictures of worksite and equipment

Me, holding up the zooplankton collecting net.

The "F" dock, at the end of which we're collecting practice samples.

In the Shanks Lab, my double microscope set-up.

Sedgewick-rafter slides, filters, a sample, and a sample extracting tube.

A counter, for counting several types of plankton at once. And my lab notebook.

A sample viewing tray under the dissecting microscope.

Week 1 - Hannah Lyons

I am Hannah Lyons and I attend Portland Community College and will be transferring to Portland State University in the fall. My studies at PCC lead me to find my passion in Biology. After taking a few amazing field studies classes at PCC I knew I wanted to pursue a career in field research. I am so happy to be here in Newport learning more about the scientific process and how to conduct field research.
At the Hatfield Marine Science Center I am working with Dr. Brittany Huntington and Stacy Galleher of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I am working with them on monitoring the marine reserves off the Oregon coast and public outreach. After being introduced and oriented here at ODFW we took the boat out! We collected four SMURFs (Standard Monitoring Unit for Recruitment of Fishes) on the reserve and four from a similar control site. The reserve is a "no take" zone and fishing is not allowed. The control site is chosen in an area that is still being fished for comparison. The SMURF is collected by wrapping a net around it and is swum back to the boat where we collect the fish. Data is meticulously collected on biological and environmental factors. The fish are bagged and labeled very carefully. Organization and precision are very important in field work as it is easy to be overwhelmed or scattered when you are soaking wet and freezing on a rocking boat in the ocean! Very exciting first week and looking forward to the rest of summer.

Collecting the SMURF

Peter Sheesley - A week of introductory reading and plankton counting practice.

Hello everyone. My name is Peter Sheesley and I've just finished a year of general biology and general chemistry at Centralia Community College, in Centralia, Washington. Centralia is half-way between Portland and Seattle on I-5. In the fall I'll be a full-time student at Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA. This is my second time through college; in my previous career I was a fine-art painter. I've also done some theoretical-science illustration and that was what initially sparked my interest in studying biological science. Marine science is particularly interesting to me because of the variety of life in the ocean and the mysteriousness of life in a habitat so foreign to us. I applied to PRIME because it was recommended by my community college professor, Dr. Steven Norton. In the spring I assisted in a research project of his, dealing with DNA analysis of freshwater sculpin. I'm located at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, OR. My mentor is Dr. Alan Shanks. Here are a few photos to introduce you to my location at OIMB.

A view of Coos Bay from above OIMB.

A view from nearby Cape Arago State Park.

A view from nearby Cape Arago State Park.

The sign in front of campus.

A view of campus.

The dining hall and some of the dorm rooms.

Our project with the Shanks lab involves analysis of larval recruitment, when individuals are added to populations as they settle from planktonic phase to early juvenile phase. The lab studies the impact of shelf and surf topography and hydrodynamics on larval recruitment. Another PRIME intern, Leyia Johnson, and I are working side-by-side in the Shanks lab. Our first task was to read several previous papers of Dr. Shanks' in order to understand the purpose and mechanisms of the lab. The papers were a valuable introduction to the concepts. Next we were given a net and a jar and instructed to collect phytoplankton samples. These samples were then viewed using compound light microscopes. 

We then spent several days learning to view and identify plankton, and count them. The plankton were transferred to sedgewick-rafter slides and viewed mostly at 100x. One of our main tasks is learning to identify plankton from the genus Pseudonitzschia. Our sampling will quantify these plankton because they contain some toxic elements. They are particularly difficult to identify because they vary in size and are easily mistaken for several other types of plankton. The long pointed Pseudonitzschia cells link together forming even longer chains. Each individual cell is between 50 - 150 micrometers long. Despite a sometimes weary neck and back, I enjoyed getting lost in the minute yet geometrically fascinating world of plankton. Here is an illustration showing some of the first things I learned. 

In addition to looking at plankton in the microscope, we also practiced casting our sampling tube. It is an approximately two-foot-long, three-inch-diameter, clear plastic tube with a stopper at one end and a moveable plastic ball in the interior of the other end. This ball allows water to enter but not exit, mostly. There is an approximately fifty-foot-long rope attached to the tube. The tube is twirled and released towards to ocean in one hand while a spool of rope is held in the other hand. Casting took some practice, but we found success. We also towed a larger net (six-feet-long, three-feet-diameter at the wider end of the cone), to catch zooplankton. We looked at the zooplankton in a dissecting microscope. The dissecting scope is nice because objects appear very three dimensional. Both the compound light-microscope and the dissecting scope bring out different aspects of plankton. The light-microscope emphasizes linear and two-dimensional aspects, and the way light passes through objects. The dissecting scope, with its stereoscopic vision, emphasizes the 3-D and the way light reflects off things. I've just started learning to differentiate and identify various larval forms. 

Bridget Begay - Week 1: Introduction

Hello everyone!

My name is Bridget Begay and I recently graduated from Edmonds Community College with an Associates of Arts in Biology. This fall, I will be transferring to University of Oregon with a major in Marine Biology, most likely towards field work and lab work with large marine mammals. There are a couple reasons why I would like to get into the marine biology. First, there is little representation of Native American students in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field. I think that Native students can take their strong cultural background and their education to empower and strengthen themselves and their tribal communities. It's challenging for underrepresented minorities in STEM fields due to various reasons, i.e. no opportunities to attend college, no support, etc. I was thankful to come across a program that supports and encourages under represent minorities. While I attended Edmonds C.C., I was recommended the MESA Program (Mathematics, Engineering, Science, Achievement), this program has helped me become confident in pursuing a PhD in Marine Biology but also giving back to the community and networking with other students. Second, I have such a high interest in marine biology because the ocean is the most undiscovered habitat on Earth and there is so much diversity to be discovered and studied, especially whale sharks! In the future, I would like to collaborate with Native American tribes and assist with the health of their tribal land, especially fisheries. I would also like to assist my own community on the Navajo Reservation, which would be a large animal veterinarian for sheep, horses and cow. I decided to apply to COSEE PRIME because I heard about it the internship through Verónica Guajardo, an Assistant Director for MESA Community College Program (WA-MCCP). This internship looked like an excellent opportunity to meet new people in marine science and network with professionals in the marine biology field.

The project that I'm participating this summer is with Dr. Waldo Wakefield, Research Fisheries Biologist - NOAA Fisheries and Mr. Matthew Yergey, Fisheries Biologist - Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. The project as described and titled on the COSEE PRIME internship website, "Characterization of the near shore soft sediment fish community of the central Oregon coast", during the late 1970s research was conducted by small-mesh beam trawl surveys of the Central Oregon coast, indicating a representation of Oregon's soft-sediment fish populations in waters shallower than 60 meters. A few examples of caught Oregon's soft-sediment fish species are Pacific tomcod (Microgadus proximus), English sole (Parophrys vetulus), speckled sanddab (Citharichthys stigmaeus) and most of the data collections of the beam trawls do include newly settled flatfishes as the dominant populations. Recent research done in 2008 to the present have supplied comparable surveys from about 30 to 100 meter depth to previous data due to similarities in sampling gear, methodologies, season and spatial coverage. Recent research has been contributing to the Nearshore Ecological Data Atlas (NEDA) for Oregon State waters. I will be working with another COSEE Intern, Matthew Mischke. We will be conducting data entry from the late 1970s small-mesh beam trawl surveys, analysis in the lab, and field work along the Oregon coast for sample collection and processing aboard a research vessel. I will also be participating in present surveys and conducting initial comparisons between the previous and modern data to characterize patterns of juvenile fish species composition in relation to season, location, bottom temperature, and type. 

The first week here at Hatfield Marine Science Center has been interesting to walk around the campus, meeting professionals and attending students who are working on various projects and programs. In my internship, I've been trained to input beam trawl data sheets from the late 70's to input into a program system called, Fisheries Oceanography Information System Ver. 1.60 (FIOS), where all of the beam trawl data is located.  This week was also the first seminar, Markus Horning, Associate Professor from the Marine Mammal Institute - OSU, I found this presentation to be interesting because it was a insight on why and how juvenile stellar sea lions mortality occur along the Alaskan coast. 

The following Saturday, the group visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The aquarium visit was engaging and we saw live marine organisms. Here are several pictures of the aquarium visit. 

Japanese spider crab

Moon jellyfish

Strawberry sea anemones  

Ochre star

Sand dollars

A tufted puffin!

A underside view of shark from Passages of the Deep

Thank you for reading!

Bridget B.

Reporting to you here, live from the post (week 1) - By: Cindyjo Keomani Boungnavath

Otter Rock

Cape Perpetua

Cape Falcon

Cascade Head

Redfish Rock

Images found at: 

www.oregonocean.info/marinereserves

Mahalo to all!

I am Cindyjo Keomani Boungnavath and I attended Portland Community College where I most recently received my degree in the arts. As of now, I am exploring various educational and experiential opportunities. After my time here at the Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) I plan to continue further research as I volunteer abroad in international communities through the program International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ). I had applied for the internship here at the Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) after my Meteorology professor had informed me about the opening. Because the ocean covers a near 76% of our planet, I find it essential to learn what we can about its mysterious beauty. This means that almost the entire world lives in an eternal darkness, and through a process called chemosynthesis, the sun no longer is necessary to create life. There now exists a new kingdom in which a life-system lives off the energy of the Earth, and solely that. I saw this internship as a means to educate myself in marine science and structures of the biologically diverse. I, at a very early age was enraptured by the thought of the deep sea and the different life forms that lived within its imperceptible walls. I live at the mercy to awe at such a stunning and exceptional world that I couldn't think of a better way to understand it but by interacting with it - and not only have mere thoughts of doing so.

Currently, I am working with Tommy Swearingen, the only social scientist within all the agencies here at Hatfield. We are working in conjunction with a team that composes the Human Dimensions Project where we assess the public's interaction with the Marine Reserves. Marine Reserves (MR) are zones within areas of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) where extractive activities are prohibited. Within Oregon, five Marine Reserves have been implemented at the start of January this year. Among them include: Cape Falcon, Otter Rock, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua, and Redfish Rock. The purpose of all these efforts coalesce to reach the goals of: conserving marine habitats and biodiversity, insures the marine reserves against large-scale ecosystem change, and lastly serves as an opportunity for researchers to investigate. 

With the field-work that I do as part of the team, I collect data that will be used directly for data analysis to make hypotheses regarding the reserves. With each site, I analyze people's attitudes that are determined by their interactions with it and take into account what utility the reserve has for a variety of people. We do pressure counts, a rapid assessment strategy, in order to get a snapshot of the area and its general use. We then go on to perform intercept interviews where we survey visitors in order to generalize what values are associated with the reserve and their attitudinal perceptions of it. Being part of a team that works towards a goal that looks at the socio-economic effects that reserves have on nearby communities, it intrigues me to study the implementation of such and the strategies as well as logistics that go along with policy-making of this manner. It is a great time doing field-work and working with such a knowledgeable crew, each day has its rewards and I await the next. 

Best,
CJ

Tabby Keefer's First Week PRIME Experience

WHO AM I?

(Myself in front of ODFW's vessel)

I would like to start off by introducing myself. My name is Tabitha (Tabby) Keefer. I am from the central Oregon coast, and science is the biggest romance in my life. Here is some background information about me that has influenced the decisions and paths I have made for myself: I have been a volunteer at the Oregon Coast Aquarium for six years, and have a healthy obsession for the West Coast and ocean advocacy. For example, I have been working with the Aquarium for the past year to develop an ocean acidification (the decalcification of marine organisms due to human actions) mobile exhibit intended for most audiences.

Moving forward, I applied for the PRIME program for several reasons. I got an e-mail from my community college one day informing me about possible opportunities as a Hatfield intern. A few phone calls and e-mails later, Coral and Itchung had me hooked on the idea of an internship. Before I knew it I was accepted into the program. For me, it was a no brainer to apply.

WHAT ARE MY EDUCATIONAL PLANS AND GOALS?

I graduated from Oregon Coast Community College with my two-year transfer degree this last Spring. I am going to attend Oregon State University in the fall as a Junior, and my major [as of right now] is Environmental Sciences. As I mentioned before, ocean education is my primary focus at this point in my life.

WHAT PROJECT AM I WORKING ON?

I am working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife currently, so far this week I have received a dash of variety in my training. My mentors are Dr. Brittany Huntington and Stacy Galleher; these wonderful ladies have made me feel more than welcome upon my arrival. The department of ODFW I’m working with is focusing on Marine Reserves and Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s), I will explain more about this endeavor as the weeks progress and my understanding blooms. We are also working with sea star data, from before and during Sea Star Wasting, I will jump into more detail in the coming weeks.

(Stacy is on the left, and Neal is on the right; both women are part of ODFW -- I will discuss what's going on in this picture next week)

Matthew - Week 1

Hello, my name is Matthew Mischke and I am currently attending Chemeketa Community College (CCC) in Salem, OR. After I finish earning my AAOT in the Fall, I will be applying for OSU to transfer Spring term. There I plan to pursue either the Environmental Sciences or Natural Resources program, with an emphasis on ecology. I decided to apply for the PRIME internship because I am excited to have an opportunity to do some field work and see what scientific research is really like. I want to pursue science as a career but I want to make sure that it really is the right fit for me, and what better way to learn than experience? I received word about the program from my biology teacher Dr. Schramm, who praised it for the opportunities it gave her former students and the wonderful experiences they had. For me, the ecology of estuaries is one of the most exciting and interesting subjects in marine and aquatic sciences. The incredible biodiversity and aesthetics for that matter, are breathtaking and incredibly important to all kinds of lifeforms. I had no other plans for the summer besides taking classes, which could always be moved back, so I decided to take action and Dr. Schramm's advice and applied. 

Evidently, I made the right choice as I am now working with Dr. Waldo Wakefield and graduate student Matt Yergey, researching juvenile flatfish communities here in and near Yaquina Bay. This research is being conducted through NOAA and is part of a long term research project started in 1977 by Pearcy and Krygier to look at the life history of local flatfish. Findings have shown so far that flatfish are using the estuaries as a nursery and migrating out to the open coastal waters. My responsibilities have so far consisted of logging the previously collected data in new databases for further analysis, but starting in the next few weeks I should be able to assist in data collection aboard one of the research vessels. 

When I haven't been working at NOAA, I've had some time to explore the local estuary. Here are some pictures I took of the area and of a Great Blue Heron landing to do some hunting. I look forward to an exciting and fun few weeks here at HMSC.

Cris - Weeks 7 and 8: Wrap Up

The last 2 weeks of my project were very analytical. I looked at the 6 weeks of data that I had recorded throughout the summer and had to decide how to present it. I settled on bar graphs and error plots to best describe my settlement data. The most significant trends in the inner basin were that the colonial tunicate Distaplia occidentalis was more abundant than in the outer basin and that it increased steadily in settlement each week, starting at a mean of 7 in week 1 up to a mean of 188 for week 6. There were very few barnacles in the inner basin, whereas in the outer basin I noticed a decrease every week in barnacle (Balanus sp.) settlement, most noticeable at my site 6. I started with high numbers in week 1 (mean of 60) to week 6 (no settlement).

6 week old site 2P
Distaplia occidentalis is seen

6 week old site 6P
Barnacles are seen

I wish I could have stayed longer to continue the research on fouling species because a 6 week data set is simply not a large enough picture. I was lucky enough to have a student continue where I left off on my research to continue to study the trends between and across the basins, especially as we enter another season. I expect the summer settlement to be different from fall settlement based simply on the trends that I noticed progress with the season. I am excited to see the data that comes along with the continuation of this study and how the seasons may affect the settlement rates of the fouling species studied.

Natasha: The Reflection

Although it might be a trite saying, this summer really has flown by. But I suppose that's a true testament to how valuable and engrossing this summer research has been. From the stormy and wild research cruises in Bellingham Bay, to the long hours in the laboratory, my experience this summer has been certainly been eclectic.

 For a long time I've been aiming towards a career in biological research. And with my recent adventures into marine science and education, I have felt I've found a true passion. This summer, the experiences I've made here at Shannon Point have been invaluable to finding exactly where I want to be as I continue my education and pave the foundation for my career.

Scientific research internships coming out of community colleges are often few and far between. I believe any community college student thinking about the sciences as a career path or simple just has curiosity for the inner workings of the natural world should think about participating in one of these internships. COSEE Pacific Partnerships was a true privilege to work with; the experience and knowledge gained from the internship was unique, exciting, and encouraging. I think any student would benefit from having this contact with the wide world of research. Apart from having a simply amazing and enjoyable summer, there are many life and job skills that prepares a student for the challenges that lie ahead.

Additionally, I would like to thank all the faculty and staff at Shannon Point Marine Center. Everyone was incredibly nice and supportive of the research and our pursuit of marine knowledge. I would like to also thank my incredible advisor, Dr. Apple. You have been a great instructor and a fantastic supporter of my efforts and ventures into oceanographic research, something that is truly valued.

The ocean is truly an amazing place, and I feel privileged to have spent the summer exploring lingering questions and research! I will never forget this tremendous summer.

Thanks everyone!

-Natasha Renae Christman

The sunset from Shannon Point Marine Center on one of the last nights before departing.

Natasha: All Together Now

At the end of the internship, it's quite astonishing to look back through the summer months and see all the data and work accomplished so far. It has no doubt been a productive summer in the Bellingham Bay research study. But before we get into too much detail, let's catch up to the last week of experiments...

In one of our final cruises, we had observed something quite peculiar and unexpected- the layer of hypoxia normally resting upon the seafloor bottom was raised up into the water column. The dissolved oxygen minimum was there in the middle of the column, somewhere right above 20m depth. While similar phenomenon had been observed in 2011, the reappearance of this had raised additional questions: What were the characteristics of this uplifted hypoxia and what caused it?

The little red oval is the uplifted hypoxia found at BB6. 

Dr. Apple and I put together one last experiment to investigate the respiration of the bacterioplankton at the bottom and in this uplifted hypoxic layer. Specifically, we wanted to know whether these communities were carbon and/or temperature limited and if there was substantial differences in these limiting factors between the very bottom water and the dissolved oxygen minimum

Draining sampled water from the CTD bottles. Picture
courtesy of Dr. Apple

The testing procedure for respiration was much like the previous experiments I completed looking at the flow of low dissolved oxygenated waters out of the bay. It was done by titrating, only with the specific carbon and temperature treatments added to sets of samples. To provide a better understanding of how a specific variable affects the respiration, the treatments were designed in attempt to isolate the potential factors.

After nearly 48 hours of incubation, the titration marathon was started. Eventually, after 13 straight hours of work processing the samples, I had the data. The results indicated that both communities were carbon limited, while the direct effect of temperature did not substantially alter the plankton respiration.

The data provided us valuable insight the nature of these two areas of the water column during this period of uplifted hypoxia. When examining the water column during this period, the influx of cold, saline water at the very bottom suggests that mechanism for the raised layer was the penetration of ocean water from outside the bay under the hypoxia and subsequently lifting it. 

The cold, deep ocean water (shown in dark blue), snuck in under the hypoxia
and lifted it, likely due to a difference in density.

This brief period we saw this hypoxic layer lift provided an interesting insight to the overall "story" of the summer hypoxia. From the early phytoplankton blooms, the consequent acute dissolved oxygen minimums from the increased respiration of this organic matter, to the gradual recovery of the system, Bellingham Bay is a dynamic coastal estuary. The research this summer provided new information and links valuable to the study, but also prompted new questions and opened additional avenues and directions for future research!

.

Zac - Summer Reflection

This summer has been quite a learning curve for me and an absolutely priceless experience. I traveled to the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology during the summer of 2013 to work in the Maslakova Lab with Dr. George von Dassow on performing gene knock-downs in the nemertean Micrura alaskensis. I came to the Maslakova Lab with no experience in the field of embryology, other than a handful of research papers to read, but was immediately greeted with a lab full of highly intelligent people that were willing to take time out of their own research agendas to show me the ropes. I didn't even approach my own research topic for at least a week after arriving at the OIMB, simply because there were so many preliminary skills to learn before I could do so. Some of these skills included the identification and collection of wild-caught Micrura alaskensis, some fertilization and culturing techniques, the basics of loading and employing the microinjection apparatus, how to take the perfect picture using DIC and epifluorescence microscopy, and of course the basics of laser scanning confocal miscroscopy.

Once I actually did start into my summer research project, I was immediately immersed within the scientific method in a way that I had never experienced before. My summer research project involved analyzing gene function in early M. alaskensis larvae by using morpholino-mediated gene knockdown. There are a number of factors involved in this research, both technological and biological, and it immediately became clear that I would be spending a large amount of time carefully checking and cataloguing my work. The process of tracking an experiment from beginning to end, and carefully cataloging the result, is something that every young scientist should experience, and the sooner the better.

This internship has also given me the opportunity to experience the life of a research scientist from multiple perspectives. For example, working closely with my adviser and his long-time collaborator, Dr. Bill Bement, allowed me some brief but insightful glimpses into the way that research is performed over the long term. Working with Dr. von Dassow and Dr. Bement have also given me some insight into the way that scientific literature is published and how collaboration occurs between scientists, even over great distances. I have also had the opportunity to work with Ph.D. students Laurel Hiebert and Terra Hiebert, both of whom have been working in the Maslakova Lab for over a year, and gain insight on the life of a hard working Ph.D. candidate.

Internship programs for community college students are few and far between, and I feel extraordinarily lucky to have been chosen to be a part of the COSEE PP-PRIME internship program. The caliber of research being done at the OIMB is unlike any that I have ever had the opportunity to experience before and being a part of it has already opened many professional doors for me. For example, this internship represents the first time that I have ever had the opportunity to present work that I have done to a live audience composed of senior researchers and Ph. D. students. It has also opened up the reality of traveling to Austin, Texas, in the Spring 2014 to co-present a poster at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) annual conference. This truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I certainly never expected to be able to achieve when I began this internship eight weeks ago. Not only has this internship supplied me with a plethora of professional skills, both mental and physical, but it has also supplied me a number of professional relationships that are likely to last well into my career as a scientist.

I would recommend the COSEE program for absolutely any community college student, whether you are specifically interested in marine biology or not. Programs like these are instrumental stepping stones for young, budding scientists and are absolutely crucial in helping the unsure find their way through the large complicated world that is the sciences. Are you interested in doing research? There is only one way to find out: get involved.