Nizhoni GoldtoothNizhoni Goldtooth is currently a student at Santa Rosa Junior College and plans to transfer to Sonoma State University in the spring of 2022 to pursue a Bachelors of Science degree in biology with a concentration in physiology. This summer she worked with her mentor Carina Fish on a coastal sciences and public health issue in San Francisco. You may think the SRJC-BML internship is only for those who are solely interested in the marine sciences, but there is far more to it than that. This summer I had the honor of working with my mentor Carina Fish, on a coastal and public health issue in the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco. Through this internship I got to see how coastal issues are interdisciplinary where I worked with medical doctors, oceanographers, geologists, health officials, sociologists and many others to achieve a goal of bringing attention to the health and coastal injustices going on at Hunters Point Shipyard. This site has a history of radiochemical experiments, nuclear decontamination and testing. GreenAction, a community-based organization, is concerned about the potential for sea level rise to release contaminants from the coastal Superfund sites into the Bay (both the estuary and neighboring community). Tasked by GreenAction to develop sampling plans for independent testing, our goal for this summer was to complete phase one: determining the feasibility of a testing plan given the budget, time, and permitting constraints. Subsequent phases (which are predicated on phase one) include executing the sampling plan and analyses, and collating the data to produce contaminant concentration maps. Through this experience, I learned and researched 1) the complex history of the shipyard, 2) what type of protocols and analytical tests to use for specific contaminants, 3) how to navigate the many different agencies and stakeholders involved in order to define a testing site, and 4) the basics of coding in R. Doing so enabled me to work with an array of people.
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Tenzing SherpaTenzing is a MCB transfer student at UC Berkeley. He is interested in pursuing a career medicine. Tenzing was mentored by graduate student Priya Shukla this summer (2021). I applied for this internship program thanks to the encouragement of professor Shawn Brumbaugh. Some things I was looking forward to when applying for this internship were getting to work in the field and get a deeper understanding of how research works outside of the classroom setting; I wanted to see how marine scientists operate and contribute to their fields.
For my 2021 BML internship, I helped my mentor Priya Shukla with her research project on the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas. The purpose of Priya’s study is to explore whether or not thermal conditioning of juvenile C.gigas in nurseries can reduce their mortality in thermally stressful environments once out-planted. For my internship, I helped Priya tag the oyster bags with zip ties, put the oysters out in the field, set up temperature sensors, and conduct mortality surveys. Outside of working in the field I also learned how to use Image J to measure the lengths of oysters using photos and a ruler for scale. During my internship, I got plenty of experience doing fieldwork and got a close look at the research being conducted at the graduate student level. Being out in the field was one of my highlights for the internship. I got the opportunity to work in the low intertidal zone and saw different marine species, some of which include crabs, jellyfishes, and sea anemones. One obstacle working out in the field was walking in the mud. On my second day out on the field while walking on mud my boot sank too deep and while trying to pull it out I accidentally took off my boot and stumbled into the water. The rest of the day I worked with wet socks. After doing it for a couple of days I got used to the squishy/ sinking feeling of the mud and being wet. One of the biggest learning opportunities working in the field was seeing just how difficult it can be to make sure everything is going smoothly. During our first survey of oyster mortality in one of our sites, we noticed that a large number of oysters had gotten out of their bags. This was despite us double-checking to make sure that none of the bags had any tears in them and that they were closed tightly. Priya quickly had to accept and adapt to the unfortunate situation. Seeing just how difficult it can be for everything to go as planned in field experiments made me more appreciative of the work done by researchers. One valuable skill I learned during my internship was the use of ImageJ. ImageJ is an app that can measure the lengths of different objects in a picture using a reference measurement. For my internship, I used a standard ruler to set the scale which was used to measure the lengths of different oysters grown in the lab. Image J is a very helpful tool not just for research but also for real-world situations. When I was moving to my new place I needed to measure the length of my room to order a desk online. Since I did not have any measuring tape I used image J to make the measurement using my phone as a reference. My time as a BML intern has provided me with lots of wonderful experiences working out in the field and learning new skills. I would recommend this internship to anyone looking to expand their view on the field of Biology. Lupe Carrasco Lupe Carrasco is an alumni of SRJC, returning to pursue a degree in biology. I spent this summer working on an original research project with my mentor Veronica, a Ph.D candidate at UC Davis. The beginning was spent becoming familiar with scientific material relating to changes in the ocean and the effects on marine organisms. We studied the California mussel this summer. The purpose of the experiment was to investigate any evidence of correlation between changes in the environment and changes in mussel shells. A majority of the work was done using ImageJ image analysis software to collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. The quantitative data was taken at the cross section of shells looking at their overall thickness. Qualitative data was done by analysing the microstructure and determining whether a shell had ordered or disordered structure in their calcite crystals. We are still in the middle stages of the project and will eventually run regressions in RStudio with environmental data in order to get a clearer picture of what's really going on in these mussels and the ocean.
Originally, I had begun this internship with various questions relating to the process that was necessary to produce a quality experiment in biology. My mentor Veronica gave me some great insight into the mindset and work that goes into producing quality research. Veronica has answered my question of how we find correlation between cause and effect in biology. After discovering that most questions in biology don’t have a direct and linear answer, a metaphorical gate in my life has opened into the vast and volatile world of biological research, and one that I am eager to continue venturing into. I was incredibly fortunate this summer to have been presented with the opportunity. Until recently, I was unaware of how drastically and consequential the effects of global climate change had been affecting the ocean. After directly inspecting them myself and reading up on scientific research, I really began to understand and respect the importance of marine biology. This fascinating and almost alien world beneath the depths of the water surface has enthralled me through most of the summer. At one point I was only strictly listening to deep sea based short horror stories. I intend to continue checking on the status of new studies being reported from the enigmatic aqueous world. While I still remain in a partial limbo attempting to decide which academic path I will commit to, it is with great assurance that I add a new possibility in studying an aspect of marine biology in my future. Oliver SereniOliver Sereni is a third year SRJC student who will be transferring to UC Davis in the fall of 2022 to pursue a degree in Zoology. He was an intern for the SRJC-BML program in the summer of 2021 and was mentored by Julie Gonzalez. Julie Gonzalez’s study takes place in the salt marshes of San Francisco bay, where her focus is on what effects prolonged exposure to seawater will have on the communities of organisms within the marsh. I assisted her in taking vegetation measurements, recording populations of invertebrates, and measuring sediment traits. The data gathered by this study will help the park management determine how to best help the marsh, as well as give some insight to the effects of sea level rise on the marshes at a community level.
This experiment is important for two different reasons. Tidal salt marshes are one of the many communities that will be greatly impacted by sea level rise, not only because of the chemical changes of the ocean water, but because the organisms that live there are very particular about the amount of time they spend in the water. A more immediate issue is the road that intersects parts of the marsh. The problem arises on the king tide, when the road floods and the parts of the marsh that are separated from the ocean become inundated with seawater. The culverts underneath the road are blocked, and Julie’s research will assist park management in finding a solution to the impacts on the back marsh, whether that means clearing the culverts or moving the road entirely. I assisted Julie in taking measurements of the organisms found within each of the 48 plots, as well as measuring the qualities of the sediment. I am grateful that I was able to be involved with the field work for this project, despite some restrictions because of Covid-19. As I am a biology major who is on the track to UC Davis, this internship was the perfect opportunity to experience and participate in real scientific research, and I am very thankful I got to be a part of it. Seraiah ReisSeraiah is a general biology major, transferring to UC Santa Cruz from SRJC in the fall. This summer she worked with her mentor Tallulah Winquist. This summer, my mentor Tallulah Winquist and I did a review of the state of the science pertaining to kelp forests and their ameliorating effects on ocean acidification. I read a bunch of papers, took notes about them, and discussed them in meetings with my mentor. We organized the information we found to answer two questions: “What factors alter kelp forests’ ameliorating effects?” and “What factors help make kelp forests more resilient to climate change?” I am still uncertain what field of biology I want to specialize in. I’ve been fascinated by marine biology since I was a child, watching ocean documentaries and looking through this one marine biology book my mom had all the time. I thought this internship would be the perfect opportunity to get to know more about the field first hand. Even though my mentor and I weren’t able to do all that we hoped with her field work and data analysis, I wasn’t disappointed. I still learned so much from what we did with our review of the science surrounding kelp forests and their ameliorating effects on climate change. More generally, aside from all that I learned about kelp forests, this experience taught me a lot about various methods of data collection and analysis in marine science, especially those to do with carbon chemistry, photosynthesis, and stable isotope analysis. I’m much more confident in my ability to read and understand complex research topics. I was also introduced to R and learned how to do some basic coding and graphing on my own. I really appreciate all of the guidance and insight provided to me from my mentor and all of the speakers at the professional development meetings. Everyone was so supportive! Tallulah always made and asked such thoughtful comments and questions to help get me thinking about things from different scientific perspectives as opposed to just absorbing the information. And it was great to hear from everyone about their college and career experiences. I feel like I have a much better idea about what it means for me to be entering the field of biology, and what my options are in the future as far as grad school and research. I can’t wait to try to get involved in more research at my next college when I transfer this fall! Here are some interesting figures I encountered during my literature review... PC: Hirsh, H.K., Nickols, K.J., Takeshita, Y., Traiger, S.B., Mucciarone, D.A., Monismith, S., and Dunbar, R. B. 2020. Drivers of biogeochemical variability in a central California kelp forest: Implications for local amelioration of ocean acidification. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 125: e2020JC016320. |
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April 2024
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