Hello!

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Hi everyone!

My name is Christy Stumbo and I am a junior undergraduate marine biology major at the University of Oregon who has a slight obsession with sharks and giant squid. I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, but have fallen in love with the great state to the north. Growing up, my family  frequently went to Monterey to explore the tide pools and visit the aquarium. I believe these trips (and watching countless Jacques Cousteau documentaries on PBS) is where my fascination with the ocean began, and by 5th grade, I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist.
seastar

I specifically chose to attend the University of Oregon because of the marine biology program at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), and I spent my first term there in the fall of 2012. It was a great experience! I was a bit nervous at first because I did not know anyone. I was even scared that what I dreamed of doing my entire life might not be something I actually enjoyed, but I had nothing to fear. I enjoyed all my classes, the field and lab experience, and making new friends who share the same excitement for the ocean. During fall quarter, I took Biological Oceanography, Molecular Biology for Marine Sciences, and Marine Environmental Issues. Although my classes were so diverse, there was a lot of overlap between all three.

I am  currently  in Eugene taking classes on the main campus, but I am anxiously awaiting my return to OIMB for the spring and summer. I am looking forward to being back, learning more about the ocean, working on my project, and surrounding myself with all things related to marine biology. Until then, I will share about my classes and experience during fall term as well as anything marine related that happens in Eugene.

 

 

 

NOAA Coastal Fellowship Progress Report July- December 2012

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Greetings from the Washington State Department of Ecology! I’m now wrapping up the 6 month mark of my 2 year NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship.

First off, I should probably describe what my project is about: creating guidance to promote “Green Shorelines”. Green Shorelines is an initiative very popular in Puget Sound these days. Due to concerns of shoreline habitat degradation, water quality, public access, and other Puget Sound health issues, Green Shorelines, otherwise known as Alternative Shoreline Armoring, Living Shorelines, or Soft Shorelines, is being promoted along Puget Sound’s marine and freshwater shores. My project is focusing on the shoreline armoring aspect; more specifically, how to implement the removal of bulkheads and seawalls and replace them with either completely natural or those with “soft” and environmentally friendly stabilization techniques.

It has been a whirlwind experience for me and these next few paragraphs describe some of the things I have accomplished during my first 6 months as a fellow:

The first month of the fellowship was spent getting to know the office and familiarizing myself with previous Green Shoreline projects. I then created a plan to network with individuals involved with Green Shorelines projects and gather background information on the needs and barriers to Green Shorelines implementation. For the next three months, I conducted a needs assessment by interviewing experienced individuals from state and local government, shoreline consultants, NOAA, and Washington Sea Grant and discussed with them the issue of Green Shorelines. During this time, I read literature related to Green Shorelines including Puget Sound marine and nearshore literature, Washington Administrative Code related to shoreline armoring, and shoreline stabilization techniques. I have also participated in site visits with Ecology employees, viewed green shoreline sites, and attended public workshops and conferences.

During the last couple of months of 2012, I identified the goals and major long-term outcomes of my project and developed a draft work plan. I then attended a Coastal Training Program class on Project Design and Evaluation and used the skills I learned further refine my project by identifying short- and mid-term outcomes, outputs, and activities suitable for my two year fellowship. I have been in contact with other organizations and individuals involved with Green Shorelines, including the Marine and Nearshore National Estuary Program grant administrators, Puget Sound Partnership, Green Shores for Homes, and others on how to best collaborate our project products in order to further advance green shorelines implementation. I have given project presentations to Ecology and local shoreline planners to facilitate discussion and feedback on my project development. The project products identified so far include a Green Shorelines Stabilization Concept and Management Principles definition geared toward assisting shoreline planners in understanding Green Shorelines stabilization, assistance in promoting Green Shorelines through incentives, and training of local shoreline planners on Green Shorelines. I am currently working on a fellowship project summary to share with interested stakeholders.

It is definitely a steep learning curve, but the frequent shoreline site visits, ferry boat rides on Puget Sound, and the motivated people I meet every day give me the energy to tackle this issue. I anticipate the future months of my fellowship to continue to propel me forward in my mission toward Green Shorelines.

Until then…

Kelsey

My First Month at OEM

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Hello World!

     My name is Geoff Ostrove and I am Oregon Sea Grant’s newest Natural Resources Policy Fellow.  I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, pursuing a PhD in Media Studies from the School of Journalism & Communication as well as a Master’s of Community & Regional Planning from the Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management.  For this next year, I have been given the amazing opportunity to work with the Oregon Office of Emergency Management (OEM) on a couple of really important projects.  

      The first one is called the Seismic Rehabilitation Grant Program (SRGP).  Over the last 10 years, the Oregon Legislature has recognized seismic safety as a critical element of Oregon’s disaster resiliency plan.  The SRGP is a State of Oregon competitive grant program that provides funding for the seismic rehabilitation of critical public buildings, particularly public schools and emergency services facilities.  Public K‐12 school districts, community colleges, education service districts, and universities are eligible for the grant program. For emergency services facilities, the emphasis is on first responder buildings, which includes hospital buildings with acute inpatient care facilities, fire stations, police stations, sheriff’s offices, and 9‐1‐1 centers.  The purpose of this grant is to help fund seismic retrofits to critical public buildings that are in serious need of improvements.  This grant is not intended to fund the construction of new buildings.  Buildings located in a tsunami inundation zone are ineligible for this grant.

     Which leads me to the second project that I am working on here at OEM: the Governor’s Japan Tsunami Marine Debris (JTMD) Task Force.  On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit with a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.  The subsequent tsunami impacted cities throughout the eastern part of the country, creating approximately 25 million tons of debris.  5 million tons of that debris is believed to have been pushed offshore, with about 3.5 million tons sinking and about 1.5 million tons floating and dispersing throughout the Pacific Ocean.   Here in Oregon, we are seeing the impacts of that tsunami earlier than most of the rest of the world.  On June 6, 2012, a dock from a Japanese harbor landed on Agate Beach.  We are beginning to see more and more of this type of activity occur up and down the west cost of North America.  The goal of the Governor’s  JTMD Task Force is to create inter-agency coordination throughout Oregon, the United States, and with Japan in order to mitigate against the potential negative impacts of the JTMD that has been dispersed throughout the Pacific Ocean and is now reaching our coast.    

      I am excited for the opportunity to work on both of these projects.  The coordinator for the SRGP is Kiri Carini, and the project is supervised by Paulina Layton, Director of OEM’s Mitigation and Recovery Division.  John Lewis, OEM’s Director of Plans and Training, is coordinating the JTMD effort.   I will also be working closely with Kim Lippert, OEM’s Public Information Officer.   

   I expect my experience here at OEM to be extremely educational and applicable to my future career goals.  I want to thank Stephen Brandt,  Sarah Kolesar,  Eric Dickey, and everyone else at Oregon Sea Grant for this amazing opportunity.  For updates on the SRGP and the Governor’s JTMD Task Force, look for my next blog.

Vessels, Pumps and VIs – Oh My!

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Since my last post I have completely re-designed my chemostat system. Take a look at my last blog post to see a picture of the previous system (aka Cv1.0). Although good in theory (autoclavable culture vessel, large culture volume, inexpensive to implement), many problems came out in the test culture phase.

To begin with, although the culture vessel itself was indeed autoclavable, the bulkhead fittings that connected tubing to the vessel were not. The silicone sealant used to close off gaps was also not autoclavable.

Additionally, the peristaltic pumps for this system quickly became very unreliable and refused to stay synchronized. Since the principle of a chemostat system is dependent on constant, synchronized influx and efflux of media, lack of synchronization in the input/output pumps leads to serious problems such as excessive dilution of the culture or (far worse) draining the culture vessel dry.

The culture vessel for Cv1.0 was also far too large. Topping out at 4 liters, it required an enormous amount of media to keep the culture at steady state.

Because of these problems I have decided to adopt a new system design (Cv2.0). Instead of the previous two pump chemostat system (one input pump and one output pump), the new system is an overflow chemostat. This simply means that the culture vessel has an open port in the side of the flask that drains excess media when the media level rises to the overflow level. This has the great benefit of requiring only one media pump (the input pump) since the overflow port drains media at the same rate that it is being pumped into the system. This new culture vessel is also much smaller (2L media capacity), so media demands should be less. Upgrading to a better quality peristaltic pump seems to have solved the flow inconsistency problems experienced in the previous system.

I have also begun the process of writing a LabVIEW VI (virtual instrument) to control the gas manifold (see picture) in response to culture pH. Slowly but surely, progress is being made.

Gas manifold with solenoid valves and non-compressible gas lines

In between working over my chemostat I have been writing my thesis proposal. It looks like I’ll be defending my proposal sometime in March or April, so I’ve also been working on some preliminary data to relate Alexandrium cellular health to pH. Hopefully I’ll be including this in my next post.

Happy 2013! :)

 

NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship Matching Workshop

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Hello!

As a recent graduate of Oregon State University’s Marine Resource Management Program and a current NOAA Coastal Management Fellow, I have been asked to provide a description of the NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship program and the matching workshop that was held this past May.

The NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship is administered by the NOAA Coastal Services Center and is a 2 year fellowship where recent postgraduates are placed in state agencies to assist them in a variety of coastal management issues. Each year, state agencies that are responsible for administering their coastal zone programs submit proposals for a fellow. Six of these state agencies are chosen, and then a request is put out for recent postgraduates (or upcoming postgraduates) to apply. Each state’s Sea Grant is responsible for the initial interviews, and then may choose candidates to endorse to the NOAA Coastal Services Center. The Center then narrows the pool down to 12 postgraduate candidates to participate in a matching workshop with the 6 states that won the proposal bid. Whew! But it is not done yet! An intensive week long workshop ensues and 6 of the candidates are matched up with the 6 state projects. I’m here to describe my experience of this fun “American Idol” style workshop.

In May of 2012, NOAA Coastal Services Center flew me out to Charleston, S.C. where I and 10 other fellow candidates stayed in a historic inn in downtown Charleston. The first day was pretty low key for the candidates. Introductions were made and we were able to meet the 6 state mentors, our fellow candidates, some employees of the NOAA Coastal Services Center, and Tridec Technologies employees (the company that NOAA contracts with to pay the fellows). That first afternoon was packed full of state mentors presenting each of their proposed projects. The states were: Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, California, Washington, and the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands. This was an excellent opportunity to hear more about the projects and for candidates to better gauge their interest levels. It was also interesting to see that a couple of the state mentors were former NOAA Coastal Fellows!

Early the next morning, it was time for each of the candidates to present themselves. All presentations were fun to watch, everyone had a different style, but most presented on their graduate work, extra experiences, and bit of personal flare! That afternoon the candidates participated in a mentor-mentee workshop that was hosted by the center.

Wednesday was an all day marathon of interviews. Each interview was an hour, and you could sign up for as many or as few interviews as you wanted. I chose to interview with all six states, since I didn’t want to limit my options, plus it is a great networking opportunity! All of the week’s activities were hosted in the hotel, so it was very easy to stop by my room for a quick break in between interviews. Some of the interviews were held outside in a courtyard, while others were in the hotel rooms of the mentors. I had a great vibe throughout the process. Each mentor was relaxed and easy to talk to. They made a stressful situation as fun as it could be!

Thursday morning was follow-up interviews to give everyone a chance to address additional questions if needed. In the afternoon, candidates and mentors alike went to the beach for some sun and some fun! It was a great way to relax with fellow candidates and mentors. That evening all of us went out for dinner. Throughout the week candidates often got together for dinners and lunches. Charleston has excellent cuisine! Thursday evening we handed in our rankings. We could rank our top three state choices, and the mentors did the same. Then the Center matches everyone up according to the ranks.

Friday morning we were called down individually for the results. I got my #1 pick and am currently working for the Washington State Department of Ecology! I’m also happy to report that many of the candidates that were not matched at the workshop were able to find jobs that were excellent fits for them by the end of the summer! It was a bright and fun group of people, and I feel lucky to be a part of that group.

The overall experience of the workshop was very positive. Although it was stressful and nerve wracking at times, I felt that the NOAA Coastal Services Center put together a great environment that was inviting and relaxing. The attitudes of the mentors and my fellow candidates were always positive and greatly contributed to the success of the workshop. We joke that it is an “American Idol” type week, because we are all staying in the same hotel, we eat together, make friends, yet in the end we are competing against each other for a prestigious national fellowship. However, the group dynamic was fantastic and it was simply a joy to be around others who have the same passions for marine science, coastal issues, and sustainable management as I do.

For those of you interested in the upcoming NOAA Coastal Fellowship year, here are some links:

http://www.csc.noaa.gov/cms/fellows.html

http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/fellowships/noaa-coastal-management

I’ve been working at the WA Department of Ecology for 3 months now. All is going well and I will be posting again in the upcoming months to describe a bit more of my project here in Washington!

Greetings!

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Greetings oceanophiles! As this is my first blog post as a Sea Grant scholar, I feel I should give a little background about myself. I am just beginning my second year as a Ph.D. student with Drs. Tawnya Peterson and Joseph Needoba at Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton, OR. My degree track is Environmental Science and Engineering, with a focus on Estuary and Ocean Systems. I have always loved the Pacific Northwest, and am constantly amazed that I get to study it for a living.

So what am I actually doing? The goal of my research is to identify links between pH and pCO2 concentration in the water and population dynamics of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the northern California Current system. My research specifically focuses on the marine dinoflagellate Alexandrium. This little guy is the alga that is primarily responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) events off the west coast of North America. Alexandrium produces saxitoxin, an extremely potent neurotoxin. Shellfish are filter feeders, and accumulate toxins when they feed on HAB species in the surrounding water. When there is an increased number of Alexandrium in the water (as frequently happens in the summer months), saxitoxin builds up to dangerous levels in the shellfish and can cause paralysis in humans and animals. What I want to do is discover whether there is a link between the pH/pCO2 content of the water and population dynamics and toxin production of Alexandrium.

I expect to be spending a lot of time on boats in the next few years, stalking the wild Alexandrium through the Columbia River estuary and out on the coast, but I will probably spend far more time in the lab. To that end, I am in the process of building a chemostat culture system, which will grow algae at a constant rate in a nutritionally static environment. Influx and efflux of media to and from the culture vessel are synchronized to the growth rate of the algae to maintain a constant growth rate.

 

The constant influx of fresh media and efflux of waste will ensure that the nutrient load of the culture vessel remains constant. I also designed the system to automatically monitor and control pH using a custom made pneumatic manifold that will change the pH of the culture vessel by bubbling it with CO2 gas. The monitoring will be accomplished by a Labview program that will also allow for remote monitoring of the system, and send will me alarms if/when something goes wrong. I have already finished the first iteration of the chemostat system and am in the process of working out the bugs (waste overflows, variable pump rates, etc.).

I’m excited to see where this year will take me and to see what new adventures lie in wait, both in the lab and out on the water. Tallyho!

 

 

Summers End

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The rainless, hot days that have accompanied the last four weeks seemed to have lulled me into a false sense of perpetual summer. As I finished up last week I realized as my time at Sea Grant is coming to a close, the summer is likewise drawing nearer to the end. So, I took some time off from working on my project and presentation and decided to take my first trip back home to Portland this summer.  While I grew up there, Portland never seems to stop changing in interesting and delicious ways. I spent most of my weekend eating my way through various neighborhoods and districts, some of the highlights included a gourmet  grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich stand (the only way I know you can order bacon, cherry jam, jalapenos and peanut butter on the same sandwich), and bleu cheese and pear ice cream from Salt & Straw (seriously, amazing). It was also wonderful to get some much needed back-to-school shopping done, and of course spend some time with my friends and family.

Returning back to the office I am refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to tackle the next week of preparations for our symposium at the end of the week. Preparing my presentation so far has been particularly challenging, I feel like I have never had a presentation that requires as much balancing and specific language as this one does. I feel this is a product partially of the nature and purpose of the workshop, simply because a major topic of the workshop was to identify the most effective ways to communicate these issues to a range of professionals and members of the public, and since part of my presentation requires ‘setting the stage’ for the workshop, I feel it is important to carefully consider the way I am communicating and presenting these issues. This really puts the workshop in perspective with my long term goals of improving interdisciplinary communication, and provides me with valuable opportunity to practice my communication skills.

Week 9: Summer…finished?

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After finishing up the loose ends on my project last week, while also working on my presentation for the symposium this Friday, it has hit me that the summer and this experience is coming to an end. Having graduated and planning on taking a year or two off before I pursue grad school, makes the conclusion of this experience all the more startling. Speaking of which, I am available for hire to any interested parties. Please submit your contact information, and I will gladly respond promptly with my resume and cover letter :)

But back to reflecting on my time as a Sea Grant Scholar. This was an experience that I enjoyed thoroughly. It has been a goal of mine for quite sometime to get an internship at an agency like the EPA, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. Even the countless minutes spent in a dark room extracting and analyzing chlorophyll. I’d like to thank Sea Grant and my mentors for making this happen for me. You guys are the best; it has been a pleasure working with people who are so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about marine science.