Category Archives: Summer Scholars

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.

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!

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

Sea_Gil’s Flying Home

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Well here we are folks. It’s my last week in Oregon. It’s so weird to think I will be on a flight back home to NY in a couple of days.

Last week was busy between some more data mining and preparing for the Summer Scholars Symposium (nice alliteration). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous when giving my presentation. It’s funny how I’ve given a bunch of presentations throughout college but I still get a little scared. I’m pretty happy with the way mine went though and on a few of the evaluations people mentioned that I had good public speaking skills so that was nice! Everyone’s presentations were very informative and I think we all did a good job! It seems like everyone did a lot of interesting work this summer and I think all the scholars count their time here as a good experience. I know I do!

On Friday, I (along with Sara) gave my presentation at the EPA Summer Intern “gathering”. This one stressed me out too, even though I had just given the same presentation the day before. I think I was a bit scared because I had been working with these people all summer and I wanted to impress them with the project I’ve been working on. Though I do work at the EPA, I am mostly in my little office all the time and I don’t think people know exactly what I’ve been up to this summer. The EPA presentation went well and because I had given the presentation so many times at that point (especially with my practice run throughs), I felt more confident when speaking about my research. After the talks were done, Sara’s mentor came over to her and me and said that while we did a good job at the Symposium, he thought we improved over all on our presentations at the EPA. I would like to thank all the evaluations for that compliment. I read them over on Friday morning and tried to incorporate many of the suggestions that were written down by the audience from the previous day.

Friday was also Betty’s birthday! It was a lot of fun. We ended the night singing karaoke at Moby Dick’s of course! For the rest of the weekend, Betty, Diego, and I went on a little camping trip in the Willamette National Forest. Saturday evening was spent collecting wood and Diego was able to start up a nice fire which we used to roast some tofurkey hot dogs and marshmallows. On Sunday morning we explored the Terwilliger Hot Springs. The springs were pretty awesome but after sitting in them for some time I started feeling a bit woozy. I know you are not supposed to stay in a hot tub for too long so I imagine that it would be the same for the springs. After the hot springs, we decided to swim in a (much cooler) reservoir. It was a refreshing experience and there was even a waterfall nearby!

Terwilliger Hot Springs!

Right now I am starting to work on my portfolio because this week is kind of busy for me since I am going surfing from Tuesday-Thursday. I just don’t want to get eaten by a shark when I’m out there AHHHHHHHH! I got freaked out after Katie told me that they were in fact sharks around here. I just have to think that the chances of that happening are pretty slim. Other than that I need to work on some metadata stuff aka data about the data. I also need to compile all the spreadsheets/articles/documents that go along with the project that I have been doing so I can give it all to Katie for the future.

I’d like to end by thanking Sarah and Eric for making my summer in Oregon such a good experience! I had a great time out here and learned a lot on a subject I barely had any in depth knowledge about before. One thing definitive thing I’ve discovered is that bivalves are more complicated than they appear. For anyone reading this who is thinking about applying for the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar Fellowship, I would highly recommend it.

While I am happy to be going home soon, I am going to miss the friends I’ve made out here but I’m sure we’ll stay in touch! Adios Oregon, it’s been great!

SWAMPED!

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SNEAK PREVIEW OF MY PRESENTATION!

I just wrote a whole post and it somehow got erased, so here I go again.  I have to keep this short because I’m so busy trying to get everything done that needs to get done before the program ends.  Currently I’m working on my symposium presentation (sneak preview on your left), which is taking longer than expected.  I decided to use an alternative presentation format, but I think that when it’s done it will definitely have been worth it.  My hope is to finish by this afternoon so that the rest of my time here can be spent working on my final document.

Last week was mostly spent transcribing the interviews that I did in Portland and Seattle, but by the end of the week I started on my final presentation.  My mentor, Dr. Tim, also gave me a copy of a white paper on aquaculture that was published in 2009.  I found this really helpful, as it gave me an idea of what my final document should include and how it should be organized.  While I have experience with technical writing, my biggest difficulty is being concise.  Since it is an informative white paper, it is meant to have many bullet points and brief factual statements.  Achieving that and communicating the importance and research that I’ve done will be a great accomplishment.  I think the best way to start that process is by finishing my presentation, as it relays my information as to-the-point as possible.

On Wednesday I got to perform with Diego, Becca (Volunteer Coordinator at the VC) and her fiancee Chris.  It was a great experience, especially since I have a really hard time getting on stage.  I’m proud of the different things I’ve allowed myself to experience this summer and I hope to take that with me when I leave.

Again, this week and next week are gearing up to be my busiest, but I’m so ready to see my work pulled together in a well-organized document.  While I won’t get to see the full white paper for a few months (it’s being edited and combined with a previous interns work), I think that just seeing my portion on a printed page will give me a lot of satisfaction.  ALSO, this Friday is my 22nd birthday! I’m sad I can’t spend it with my family and friends at home, but the friends I’ve made this summer will definitely help make it a memorable one.

The Sea Cow |wk.8|

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Hello Everyone,

This week is our final symposium for Sea Grant meaning next week is our last week! As such, I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating about what I’ve learned from this internship. These are equally important and even more so together than alone. First, a new respect for time. Time flies, people. While I’m happy with what I have turned out so far, and will turn out, I feel like I would be happier with another two weeks. Second, it’s important to get to know people and ask questions. There are so many benefits to this. In short, it saves you work time and you’ll get a better experience out of it having made new friends. These suggestions may seem obvious to you, as they were to me, but I have developed a new appreciation for them.

I have also learned that I am not too excited about working in front of a computer all day. This is dramatized by the fact that I’m taking an online physics II course (which I’m DONE with Wednesday, by the way!!!!). If I could find a job with a nice balance of field and desk work I would be quite content.

Last week I worked on editing transect clips for the mapping interface. I’m waiting to get some location data before I can get them posted to the map. Unfortunately, I highly doubt I’ll have it put together enough to display at Thursday’s symposium. I really only have Monday and Tuesday of this week to work on my presentation and anything else because Wednesday I’m going out on Oregon State’s boat, the Elakha, to help with an ROV cruise!

I also completed my invertebrate video and Bob Swingle has uploaded it to YouTube, so please go ahead and take a look!

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This video highlights 19 reoccurring invertebrate species found in, but not limited to, the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve/Marine Protected Area. These clips were taken by remote operated vehicle (ROV) in September of 2010. The depth ranges from 24 to 52 meters, with the average being around 37 meters. 10 centimeter laser spacing. There are 19 identified invertebrates – how many more can you spot?

Identified species: Vermilion sea stars, orange puff ball sponge, California hydrocoral, California sea cucumber, purple sea urchin, rainbow star, orange cup coral, giant plumose anemone, basket stars, gorgonian, giant acorn barnacle, orange encrusting sponge, pink stars, sunflower stars, fish-eating anemone, painted anemone, sand-rose anemone, octopus, dungeness crab.

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The umbilical is also lifted onto the boat

ROV is lifted by crane to the boat

Friday I had the opportunity to help out the loading process of the ROV. Basically, I carried a bunch of equipment onto the Elahka, helped adhere the umbilical (the cord that carries data/power/etc. from the boat to ROV) to the boat, and set up the hydrophone.

bh

ODFW's ROV, The Sea Cow

Most of this weekend consisted of doing physics homework. I had two exams to do and numerous other assignments to finish. I though it would be pretty stressful to get everything done but since I had been working on it for the last couple weeks it wasn’t really that bad…I got my exams done and was able to go crabbing with Lauren, Sara, and Sara’s visiting boyfriend, Tim. I’ve got a few more assignments to finish and then the last day of class if Wednesday!!!

A Week of Reading.

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ODFW Adventures: IIX

Sometimes, you’ve gotta spend some quality time with the things that aren’t wildly exciting. So this week, now that I’ve accomplished my big task of the determining the herring quota and making the spawning maps, I spent all 5 days, 8 hours each, working on one thing: the annotated bibliography. If you remember, I started on this task several weeks ago. The bibliography consists of citations and annotations of many articles, mostly peer-reviewed journal articles, that will help the Nearshore Team accomplish the task of writing the supplementary document about climate change for the Oregon Nearshore Strategy. That being said, I have now read over 50 articles about climate change related to things as large as all the oceans on our watery planet, to as small as a single species in Newport’s own Yaquina Bay. My knowledge of upwelling, salinity changes, temperature changes, freshwater inputs, and other ocean-related factors has increased ten-fold since I came to Newport and began this specific task. But I will admit, I am now even more confused about wave height changes due to climate change now that I have read several very confusing, mathematical, and technical journal articles about the subject that I didn’t understand. But with all the time I spent on the bibliography this week, I have read the majority of the articles we have gathered (probably about 80 articles total) and I hope to finish reading and documenting the last few articles before I leave, as I have several tasks left to do in the next two weeks as I finish up my internship. For Sea Grant, I will be preparing a presentation and writing a final report about my internship to submit, while for ODFW I will be writing up protocols for all of the processes in the determination of the herring quota, such as how to count the eggs and make the maps. So I will be very busy in my last days here, and I will hopefully leave the office on the 19th with everything checked off on my to-do list!

This week I simply made a lot of omelets because I bought a rather large amount of salmon at Fred Meyer that I ended up eating all week. With all of my delicious salmon and egg combos, I realized that I always make omelets when I have a lot of random stuff in my refrigerator that I need to use, usually including produce and plain yogurt (a great fat-free creamy addition to your omelets!).We also went crabbing two more times this weekend in Waldport, but sadly we only caught one! But I still have hope of catching more delicious dungeness crabs before I head home! Below is a picture of me holding Guapito, our only crab of the weekend.