Category Archives: Former scholars

Finishing touches

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Faithful blog followers: I regret to inform you that today’s post will most likely be my last post on the Sea Grant Scholars blog. I know, I know, what are you going to do with your spare time now? Do not fret, you can receive your weekly dose of AnnaRose adventures at AnnaRose and the Sea. This week marks my final week of working with Oregon Sea Grant. Come Friday, I will be leaving Corvallis and preparing for my journey

In regards to last week, I do not have much to report. My work days right now are pretty predictable. I’ll answer a lot of emails, make a couple phone calls, and go to a meeting or two. My main task for myself is to move forward on as many logistical details as possible before I finish at the end of this week. That said, a lot of my tasks have been getting contracts signed and preparing documents. One large, and slightly tedious, project I am working on is creating a comprehensive list with all the faculty from the Oregon University System that we want to try to invite to the workshop. While it is repetitive, it is interesting to learn about faculty doing marine research who I did not know about. Hopefully, by the time I leave at the end of this week, the major logistical kinks will be worked out so that thing will run smoothly for others that will be planning the event.

Thanks to those who followed my posts! Stay tuned to my other blog for updates on my continued adventures in marine science and policy. As part of my final post, I will leave you with a section of my Reflection Essay for the final portfolio of my internship:

The sum of both my summer experiences with Oregon Sea Grant has significantly shaped my career aspirations. In short, I have learned that I find marine policy very interesting, particularly CMSP, but in order to be at a level of influence to where I am satisfied with my job I need to obtain a PhD and more career experience. The policy world is very hierarchical and my experience has made it very apparent to me that I need at minimum a Master’s degree before I can make a meaningful contribution towards marine management.

An ongoing internal debate I had throughout my last couple years of college was whether I was going to choose a graduate path in science or policy. Largely as a result of what I have learned from my Sea Grant experiences, I have decided that I am going to pursue a PhD in the sciences and spend my early-career as a research scientist. Quite often, scientists who are established in their field will be called to contribute to policy and management decisions. My hope is that by starting in science, I will later be able to contribute to policy in a meaningful way.

Another way Oregon Sea Grant has significantly influenced my career decision is by exposing me to Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. Throughout this past year, I had been entertaining the idea of incorporating geospatial science into my academic repertoire. Learning about CMSP and the importance of science that orients marine data geospatially has prompted me to pursue a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) this coming January. After obtaining my GIS certificate, I intend to apply to graduate school next fall. My plan is to pursue a PhD in coral reef biogeography, studying spatial patterns in reef ecosystems in response to climate change and habitat fragmentation.

Pasa bon dia,

AR

Summer Scholar’s work displayed at NOAA open house

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Joanne Choi's OLY-ROCs project on display at NOAA open houseCongratulations to Summer Scholar Joanne Choi, whose poster on her OLY-ROCS project was prominently featured in this weekend’s open house at the new NOAA Marine Operations Center in Newport!

Joanne’s work on a new kind of artificial breeding structure for oysters was front and center at the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve exhibit, alongside exhibits from NOAA units ranging from the National Weather Service to National Marine Fisheries Service.

Dr. Steve Rumrill, South Slough research coordinator, had great things to say about Joanne and her work this summer. He’s an enthusiastic supporter of the Sea Grant Summer Scholars program, and hopes to host additional undergrads in the future.

Several thousand people toured the exhibit area over two days as part of the weekend’s official dedication/welcoming/open house for NOAA’s newest, most state-of-the-art marine operations center, which will be home port for the agency’s Pacific research fleet.

It’s Friday already?

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To be honest, this week has breezed by so quickly that I am having trouble recollecting everything I have been up to. The only thing that sticks out in my mind about this week is some very important news I got about the Australia job…

I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!!!!! I AM GOING TO SHARK BAY AUSTRALIA!

Whew, now that the cat is out of the bag I can breathe easy. I officially found out the news on Tuesday evening via email. I’m extremely excited to be a part of the research team, and even more excited to finally have an answer to what I’m doing this fall. Much of my post-OSG plans had been hinging on whether or not I was going to get this job. As a result of getting the position, I will not be applying to graduate school this year and instead will prolong the process to next fall. After I get back from Australia in the end of December, my plan is to move to Portland to get my Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems through PSU.

If you are interested in learning more about the project that I will be a part of, watch the video at http://www2.fiu.edu/~heithaus/SBERP/index.html

Alright, now back to the land of working at Oregon Sea Grant. As you know from my previous post, I am finally able to move forward on my event planning project and I have made progress with that this week. My biggest accomplishment was writing up some “proposals” on what the breakout sessions for the event would look like. So far in planning the event, our planning group has given a lot of lip service to having breakout sessions, but have not made our ideas concrete. I decided that it was time to move forward on figuring out what these sessions could look like. After meeting with some people and doing a lot of reading, I was able to develop a solid outline for us to work with.

An interesting side project I was thrown into this week was working in the areas of fisheries economics. Some of the staff at OSG decided that one of the impact statements I worked on needed better numbers to quantify the economic impact that was being claimed in the document. I spent a large portion of this week digging through economic reports on the fishing industry in Oregon and stock assessments of certain target species for the industry. Needless to say, it was a grueling process and made my head hurt. However, in light of the project making my brain want to explode, I found it interesting. I’m a very analytical thinker and I really like working with numbers. A lot of working on this project required me to problem and solve and think about how I could take X value and turn it into Y value.

On a not-so-serios note, I think my office is a inter-species breeding ground for insects. First, I’ve been getting returning visits from the hornets of doom. It’s always a pleasant surprise to have one swarm around my head when I’m in the middle of a phone call. Second, I have had a new species of insect cropping up in my office. It looks like a dragonfly mated with a carpenter ant. I don’t know where they are coming from, but they have taken an affinity to me and my office. My co-workers are now used to my daily yelps from the office and running out to grab paper towels to squash the flying visitors. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that Ballard sits on top of a nuclear waste site; it would explain all the genetic freaks of nature that keep cropping up.

To end this post I’d like to wish good luck to all the other scholars who are heading back to their colleges/jobs/internships in other areas of the US. As for me, I’ll still be lurking about Sea Grant for another two weeks. Stay tuned for more stories from “The Adventures of AnnaRose and the 3rd floor of Ballard.”

End of session update… a bit late

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Hello all,

Having decompressed from what was a long and exhausting legislative session, I thought I’d share a little bit of what I wrote in my final report to Sea Grant. It gives a (relatively) brief overview of what was a long and, at times, stressful six months of my life.

I will break it up into chunks, so as not to bore you with a block of text. Without further ado, what follows is a brief introduction to the Oregon Legislature:

Never in a million years did I imagine I would ever be working in politics. Yet when I applied for the Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellowship, I had no idea how deeply immersed I would become in Oregon politics generally, and coastal Oregon politics specifically. It certainly has been an experience I will carry with me, and put lessons learned to use, for the rest of my life. What follows is my report on the 2011 legislative session through the eyes of the Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellow.

The Legislature

To begin, it is worth mentioning the unique political climate that existed in Salem during the 2011 session. While the Senate was narrowly controlled by Democrats (by a 16-14 majority) he House of Representatives was split evenly (30-30) between Republicans and Democrats, something that had never happened before. Much of January was spent determining how business of the House would be conducted. Every House committee would have a Republican and Democrat co-chair, who would each need to agree to hear a bill in committee. There would be a Republican and Democrat co-Speaker of the House, who would alternate days presiding over floor sessions.

Needless to say, in order for a bill to pass the House, it had to have bipartisan support. While theoretically this created an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve Oregon’s problems, in practice it made it all too easy for one party, or even one member, to kill a bill that they didn’t want to see passed.

The Coastal Caucus

Operating as usual in this unique environment was the Oregon Coastal Caucus, which the Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellow is assigned to support. A bipartisan and bicameral group of legislators, the Coastal Caucus is unique in Oregon politics. It consists of the Senators and Representatives from coastal districts, as well as the Senator from the Klamath basin (due to the region’s dependence on salmon and other oceangoing fish). The members are, for the most part, long-serving; all are in at least their third term. For the 2011 legislative session, the Coastal Caucus consisted of: Rep Cowan (chair), Rep Krieger, Rep Boone, Rep Witt, Rep Roblan, Sen Verger, Sen Johnson, Sen Kruse and Sen Whitsett.

The group meets weekly during session, for an hour in the morning, to discuss issues of concern. The Coastal Caucus operates on a consensus-only basis: if they have consensus on an issue, they weigh in on it. If even one member disagrees with the group, no action is taken. There is a sense among members that the coast is often overlooked in Oregon politics, and they feel strongly that it is their duty to protect their constituents. While there are both Republicans and Democrats representing coastal Oregon, party lines are often blurred, and issues stretch across individual districts.

Because of the composition of the group, they are able to have tremendous influence on issues that they choose to weigh in on. In an evenly divided House of Representatives, that influence should have been even stronger. 

Over Already?

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Phew!  This is the first time that I have sat down at my computer for any substantial amount of time all week!  As I begin my final week here as a Sea Grant Scholar at the EPA Newport, OR, Research and Development Branch, I find it hard to believe that these are my final days of my internship.  Early last week was spent wrapping up with field work, lab processing, and data entry.  I was planning on spending the rest of the week prepping for my presentation on at the Final Symposium on Thursday, but was caught off guard when I was thrown into more field work for the week.  So last week was more of the same – making artificial sea water, filling bladders, taking nutrients, deploying chambers, gathering chambers, taking nutrient samples again, measuring volumes, etc. etc.  I did though, demand some time to work on my presentation.  Thursday morning rolled around, so I waiting anxiously for the start of my symposium all the while making adding the final touches to my Power Point.  At lunch time, my mentor, Ted, and I headed to the Hatfield Marine Science Center for lunch before the presentations began.  It was enjoyable to see everyone again, since I haven’t seen some of the other scholars since June when we first met. 

I felt that the presentations went great!  Everyone worked on a vastly different type of project that all pertain to and are important to the marine science field, especially in the northwest.  I found giving my presentation to be a bit complicated.  The details of my project are so in depth that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around them myself, never mind trying to explain them to an audience, many of which do not have a scientific background.  I could have spent my whole 15 minutes explaining how the experiment was run, never mind trying to tell a story with results and a conclusion.  I got some great feedback though and after talking with my mentor, I had a few moments to change a couple of things before my second presentation with the EPA the next day.  I felt that it went much better.  I think that the only way that I would be satisfied with giving a presentation on this project is if I had an hour to do so! 

Adding the final touches to one of our deployments. Here I am taping a nalgene bottle to the side of one of the chambers that will fill with water as the tide comes in. We will use this water to take a nutrient sample of the high tide water to compare to our artificial sea water.

At the beginning of this week, we immersed ourselves into another experiment.  This experiment involved a total of 32 chambers in 3 days.  That’s 32 bladders of water plus one more for the control!  My feet hurt from standing all day, but I’m glad that I was able to venture out in the field for part of it.  These past few days have been beautiful on the coast!  We have been running into another issue with this project – I know, surprise, surprise.  The day after we ordered 12 new bladders, they started tearing around the nozzle!  We’ve had four tear already!  This is problematic because we are already pressed for time, so taking the time to refill another bladder puts pressure on us to get everything deployed before the tide comes in.  I’m afraid that one of them will break after it’s been out in the field and our artificial sea water will be contaminated! 

Anyway, field work will be over tonight – this is my last day in the field!  The next two days will be spent completing lab processing and data entry.  I’ll have to take time to write my final paper so that it gets in on time on Friday.  I’ll probably post some if not all of my reflection paper to this blog so you all can read about my final thoughts of this internship.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions! 

As always, my weekends are filled with fun Oregon adventures.  Check out what I’ve been up to here: sarasoregonadventure.blogspot.com

This is it |wk.9|

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This is it – the last week!

So last week was pretty busy. I finished up my online physics II class and compiled my presentation for Sea Grant in addition to my ODFW work. I was pretty impressed with my fellow scholars’ presentations. We recieved many compliments; if you came out and offered feedback I would like to thank you because we appreciated it!

This week at ODFW I plan on creating more transect highlight clips and a rocky reef marine habitat classification video (at the very least). I’m also taking surf lessons with Margaret and Betty! Today was our first day and it was sooo fun. A bit tiring, but fun. I was pretty worried about the cold Pacific upwelling ;) but our 10(?)mm wetsuits kept us nice and comfortable. Two more days of lessons! :)

What an amazing experience I’ve had this summer. I sincerely want to thank Oregon Sea Grant, and more specifically, Sarah, Eric, and Jenna for giving me this opportunity. I have had many memorable firsts this summer. For instance, actually seeing the Pacific Ocean, surfing, sandboarding, crabbing, ‘musseling’, tide-pooling, going on my first research cruise (thank you Mike and ODFW!), hearing sea lions bark as I’m going to bed, eating rockfish, and much more.

In addition to all of the exciting recreational activities I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy, I have also learned a bit about the workings behind a government agency in marine management. I think what stands out the most to me is how much communication and cooperation there is among the agencies at Hatfield. Also apparent to me is the amount of research/projects being done here. All for the benefit of the general public and particular marine species. Communication, communication, communication!

I want to thank the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for welcoming me in. In specific, I would like to thank Michael Donnellan, my advisor, Erin Cooper, Bill Miller, and Bob Swingle. Thank you for allowing me to help you out with the public outreach aspect of your project! I very much enjoyed exploring the habitat and species diversity in the footage. There are many more people who gave me ideas and contributed input as this summer progressed so I thank you as well!

I’m definitely going to miss the other Sea Grant Scholars. I’ve made some great friends this summer. We’re a pretty cool bunch. :)

Saturday I begin the three-day drive home. I know that most of the time will be spent reflecting upon this summer.

(Oh, and if you know of any good audiobooks, let me know!)

St. Perpetua Trail view, Cape Perpetua

Final Days: Fishing and Writing

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ODFW Adventures: IX

I can barely believe that ten weeks has already passed by, and I will spend the next 4 days wrapping everything up at ODFW. Last week was a short week for me, as I had Friday off to travel to Vancouver, WA to be in my Cousin’s wedding for the weekend. But I spent the time I had working hard on the presentation I gave on Thursday and reading and writing more for the annotated bibliography. My presentation turned out very well, thanks to the practice run I had in Ali’s office with the Nearshore Team as my audience. At the symposium I had some technical difficulties to begin with, as my presentation saved in a very wonky fashion, but after downloading it one more time, the pictures and titles were all perfectly in place. And after my presentation, my team congratulated me on my presentation and the professional answers I gave to questions asked after my presentation. All the previous and following presentations were just as good, and it was fantastic to hear in-depth descriptions of all the other Sea Grant interns’ internships. It was a great ending to the Summer Scholars program, and I hope that all the years to come with new scholars turn out as good as this one!

I was only able to add a few articles to the annotated bibliography due to my limited schedule, but that seems to be the story with this document–slow and steady gets the job done. I hope to pick up the pace and read all of the last articles and add them to the bibliography this week, but with my other work items taking priority, I will simply do my best to finish the bibliography in the next 4 days.

I wasn’t able to write this blog yesterday because I spent the day FISHING on a boat in Port Orford! Although I have a lot of work to finish up this week, it was nice to take a break and get some fun cross training. Besides, I need to practice my fishing skills if I really want a career in this field! I ended up catching 5 black rockfish for the Marine Reserves Program to measure and weigh. They were looking at the different fish species that live at Redfish Rocks, where a Marine Reserve will soon be put into place. All in all, it was a windless day with many flies and just a few fish pulled onto the boat. But beyond that, we saw some amazing wildlife–several species of fish, tufted puffins, jellyfish, whales (even a tail out of the water!), and porpoises right next to the boat! It was a great way to start my last week and I will remember that trip for the rest of my life.

This week I will also be writing up the protocols for the Herring project for determining the spawning biomass and quota, making the maps, and likely revising the egg counting protocol after our Herring meeting this Thursday that we are having with people that are/have been involved with the project. Even though this meeting is on my second-to-last day of work, it will likely be one of the most significant meetings of my internship, as (hopefully) changes will result from the hour of vigorous discussion.

Last, but not least, I will be spending some time putting together my final report for Sea Grant. Evaluating and reflecting on this internship will not be difficult, as I have learned so many things about myself and my interests that I could likely write a chapter in a book, but it will take more time to get my thoughts organized and write a flowing essay on the topic. But I have confidence that this, and my other two tasks, will be accomplished before 5 pm on Friday.  

I had such an amazing and memorable summer, and it wouldn’t have been the same without my mentors of the Nearshore team, Greg, Ali, and Delia, or the other Summer Scholars, Sea Grant staff, and the rest of the staff at ODFW. Thank you everyone so much for such an amazing experience!

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 9

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presentation. presentation… presentation.

Hey y’all!

Sorry this last post is so late.. it’s been super busy!  I had my final presentation for Oregon Sea Grant last Thursday, a guest presentation on Friday for the COSEE program, and I will give another presentation tomorrow to my organization.  Presentations are the bane of my existence, but I made a BALLER powerpoint, practiced a ton, and was able to get through the first two without fainting or hyperventilating.  Not that I was that close, but I can just imagine that happening..

Our final OSG presentations weren’t scheduled for the end of our summer internship though.  I still have another week left, and I am on a sprint to the finish line!  I still have a few projects to finish before this week is up.  (I have to analyze all 96 videos from last last week, and I have to shoot more with the oyster clusters turned around)

reflection.

As for my thoughts on this whole experience.. It was amazing.  If you’re thinking about applying, DO IT.

I cannot express my gratitude to Oregon Sea Grant and my mentor for setting up such a great summer internship.  I came here because I needed more experience in the marine science/policy/mgmt arena to help my decision-making about graduate school, and I got that and much more.  Before, I knew I wanted to end up working with marine environmental issues, and I knew that I needed and wanted to get more schooling, but I didn’t know which way to go:  science? management? academia? government? etc etc.

Now, I have a better idea of what working in the marine sciences for the government is like.  Not only have I gotten experience with actual research, techniques and methods, but I have also been exposed to everything else that surrounds the science and definitely affects it.  Policy, money, bureaucracy, stakeholders, the citizens of Coos Bay.  It’s all in there.

I have also met amazing people.  Intelligent, hard-working, passionate scientists, directors, and managers, who have all been extremely friendly and willing to share advice from years of experience in the field.  I have learned a lot just by talking with them, and I’ll definitely take their advice when I start applying to graduate schools.  The students I’ve been living with have been amazing too!  The students here at Oregon Institute of Marine Biology and I went on some cool adventures in Coos Bay.  It’s been great.

And my mentor?  Awesome.  Since day one, Steve Rumrill has been there to answer questions, offer advice.. all those good things mentors should do.  He was always on the move, switching from one project to the next, planning another one down the road, and he always brought me along.  I came here looking to learn as much as I could and get as much experience as I could, and I definitely got that.  Thank you!

What’s next?

Although I don’t have a CONCRETE idea about which graduate program I will be applying to, I now know what I will be looking for in my search.  While that search is going on though, I will be in New Mexico, working with Sapphire Energy on algae biofuel for a few months.  Trying out the private sector!

 

It’s been a good summer, and I’ll miss everyone I’ve met here in Oregon.  I hope you all had fun reading this blog.  Sayonara, folks!

Hot Springs…Guided

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Hear ye! Hear ye! This is the last week for me at the VC! I am sad/happy/stressed to leave. Sad because I have made some lifelong friends to whom I will have to say goodbye to. Happy because I miss my hometown. Stressed because I have to pack/clean/finish my project/finish my portfolio!

Last week was a crucial one, for I did visitor assessments to see what people learned from the panels. People seemed to understand what the LHX tag does and how it works. That is a main point of the research, which makes me happy to share to the public, and even happier that they understand this concept. I did see that people didn’t read the entire thing because it was so full of text. So my first order of business is to shorten the text into captions and bullets to make it more vacation-friendly.

My symposium experience on Thursday was excellent. All of my fellow scholars did an excellent job with their presentations, from which I learned about policy, web design, shellfish transport, nutrient deposition, and other great subjects with which Oregon Sea Grant dirties its hands with.

The rest of the weekend I spent with Betty and Margaretmary in Corvallis, McKenzie for camping, and the Terwilliger Hot Springs. We had a blast! On the way back from the Hot Springs, we stopped by the Scandinavian Festival in the town of Junction City. A weird experience, but a good one regardless!

This week, I intend to finish my assessments, my portfolio, packing, cleaning, and conducting live performances at Cafe Mundo on Thursday as well as a farewell party on Tuesday at my mentor’s house!

Thank you all for reading and to OSG staff for this great experience. I recommend this program to any who find interest in outreach, and a multi-discipline approach to science and community.

-Diego

The Final Countdown

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It’s the final week of what has turned out to be a great summer internship. Needless to say, I’m surprised at how quickly my time here has gone, but pleased about all of the personal and professional progress I’ve made since June.

Last week was busy, getting ready for final Scholars Symposium presentations and writing up the sections of the final document that Sea Grant is putting together.  Like I’ve mentioned in passing before, my work and interviews have all lead to the final process of creating a few key parts to a larger document that will be published by Sea Grant later this year about expanding Oregon’s exports to China and the Asian market.  Kenneth Wingerter, the post-bac who initially started the research on the project is going to come back, write an introduction and executive summary, and tie together our information for a final publication with all stakeholders and the community in mind.  While I’m basically just putting together a rough draft to be edited by many others, I can’t wait to see what Ken and everyone else does with our work.

My work this summer has introduced me to so much about the Oregon Coast, working in a position that is meant to educate and help others, and the huge impact international trade plays on our country.  It has given me perspective on one part of the industry, that will be invaluable in navigating my future careers.  I know now that local food marketing is something that I want to become more involved with and to be able to weigh my experience in two extremes of the food marketing system.

I celebrated my birthday this weekend with the great friends I’ve made here in Oregon.  We went out on the town in Newport (yes, it’s possible to go out on the town here!), eventually working our way to Moby Dick’s for some karaoke. Then, I got to enjoy some camping with Diego and Margaretmary for the rest of the weekend.  We went to Terwilliger Hot Springs and got to experience a different part of Oregon — nude outdoors-men included.

I feel so lucky to have gotten this experience and am sincerely grateful to Sarah, Eric, and Jenna for choosing me for my position.  My mentors Tim and Rob were supportive and helpful throughout the process and I couldn’t have done the work I did without their guidance and help.  While I’m not 100% sure about my plans upon returning home, I feel that my experience here will be something that reflects positively on my ability to learn quickly, adjust to new environments, and produce quality work.

This week will be spent finishing drafting all of my information into workable documents, forming my final portfolio, and getting ready to make the long drive back to Louisiana.  And did I mention surf lessons? I can’t express my excitement and happiness over all I’ve experienced this summer, but I think my sadness about having to leave says it all.  To close, I’ll leave you with a few pictures of a great summer…until next time Oregon!

Later Oregon!

swimming with whales!

mussel hunters

My first live performance on the uke

The Sea Grant Ladies