March 7, 2019

The start of March has been pretty exciting for the progression of my project. Dr. William Cochlan from the Romberg Tiburon Center finally has enough time to help me get the materials I need in order to move on to testing. I have also started collaborating more with Sophie Haase Cox, a junior in the MARC project who is interested in continuing my research and working with Dr. Cochlan after I leave. This week I have made further editions to my introduction and sent out an email in order to bet back in contact with Dr. Cochlan and find a meeting time that works for him, Sophie, Stori and I. The next couple weeks will be busy, but if I can get the materials I need and the incubators come soon, I can finish my set up.

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February 22, 2019

This week I made some progress on finding materials and reaching out to Sachi. We talked about how we are planning to drill through the incubator but decided it would be easier to drill once I have the lights and figure out how everything fits in the incubator. I have a list of materials I need and am hoping to get from Dr. Cochlan. Looking forward, I need to buy an acrylic drill bit to drill through the plastic without cracking it, and I will email Dr. Cochlan once I get back from mini course and he has more time on his hands to talk to me, discuss my role in his larger research project, and finally get the materials.

February 15, 2019

This past week has resulted in many solutions for my MARC project and even more work as I rework my methods and intro to fit into my revised project once again. Stori got in contact with Dr. William Cochlan and his lab over the past weekend and despite what they have told me previously, Dr. Cochlan is graciously willing to supply the lights, f/2 medium, silica enrichments and the Pseudo-nitzschia! Dr. Cochlan just got a large grant to work on exactly what I have been researching - what causes Pseudo-nitzschia to bloom and create mass amounts of domoic acid that cause the red tide - and he thinks I can be super helpful by just looking at how to create large blooms by playing with the temperature and salinity. This further simplifies my project by cutting out the domoic acid aspect of it that I have spent a lot of time researching and have had some trouble figuring out. However, I will have to spend more time rewriting my intro and methods. This also means I will have to readjust my February action steps because not everything is necessary any longer. Although I would love to meet with Regina or Kendra, they seem very busy and I no longer need to push as hard to find a time with them. My next steps now that I know where I am getting most of my materials are to work on my manuscript, look at what containers I want to culture my Pseudo-nitzschia in, and figure out how to make the reptile coolers we use for our C. elegans work as a plankton incubator by drilling holes in it to connect to a bubbler and lights.

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This week I continued to knock some more actions off of my to do list. I have been looking into ELISA kits while I wait for a time to meet with Regina or Kendra in the Kudela lab. I have started adding more technical procedures to my methods so I can be prepared to look over it when I meet up with them.

I have been making steady progress this week. To start the week, I spent some time getting organized and making myself a timeline with due dates for the next month. Some of my goals for January are to have a nearly complete intro, working methods, an in-person meeting with Regina Radan in her lab at UC Santa Cruz, and to know where I will be getting the pseudo-nitzschia. So far, I have organized all of my work in my online folders, learned a lot about how I will analyze my data when the time comes, and contacted Regina Radan again. Right now I am waiting for a response from Regina and preparing my methods to look over them with her in our meeting. I have also been working on my intro and will have a fairly final version by the end of Tuesday.

February 12, 2018

After winter break, I am coming back refreshed, motivated and ready to work hard to finish my project by the end of the year. I was unable to meet with Regina Radan, a research professor at UC Santa Cruz who works in the Kudela lab over break but am planning on meeting with her by the end of January. I have a couple more goals set for January as well. The first step I need to have completed in order to make any progress is to have a working set of methods. I am planning on looking over these with Dr. Radan as well as taking a tour of her setup and gaging the possibility of acquiring Pseudo-nitzschia from the Kudela Lab. By the end of the month I need to have a draft of an introduction, a set of methods I can work with as I start culturing and testing in February, an organized timeline to visualize my last couple months of senior year and complete my project, and I need to know where I will be getting the Pseudo-Nitzschia. I finally feel like I have enough time and information to make the big step forward and am planning to ride this wave of momentum up until the end of senior projects to complete what I set out to do and have research that others can look at and add onto after I leave.

December 17, 2018 - Quarter 2

This quarter I have spent a lot of time figuring out what is actually plausible for my MARC project after figuring out exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it in my methods. I have come close to finalizing my methods and have found the tests I want to use. This quarter started with a trip to the Romberg Tiburon Center where I was able to meet with Dr. Bill Cochlan and some of his students and assistants. They showed me around the lab and gave me detailed instructions on how they culture all of their plankton and do the cell counts and analysis. They had lots of expensive equipment and told me that it probably would not be viable for me to work on ocean acidification at the moment with the equipment I have access too so I decided to work solely on temperature and salinity. This was a little disheartening after working so long and hard on ocean acidification in my methods and for science symposium, so I was set back and my progress slowed for a couple weeks. However, I have recently picked up the pace again after contacting Regina Radan of the Kudela Lab at UC Santa Cruz. She has been very helpful in sending me papers to look at and looking over my methods. I am planning on finding a time to meet with her down in Santa Cruz over the break and touring her lab to mainly see the light and heat setups. Another development in my project is the involvement of Sophie '20, a junior MARC student in my project. She is interested in looking at the production of domoic acid in Pseudo-nitzschia as well and is willing to help me culture and analyze my algae. Looking forward, I need to figure out the lighting and heating/cooling aspects of my project, preferable by meeting with Regina, and get my culture growing!

This week I have made much progress on my project. Because of a call I had with Dr. Bill Cochlan who works at the Romberg Tiburon Center, I have refined my project and come up with a clearer set of methods which will help me get more definite results in a short period of time without having to travel to Tomales every weekend to collect samples. I am now planning on testing different pH, temperature and salinity levels on Lingulodinium polyedrum, a species of bioluminescent dinoflagellate ecologically relevant to the California coast. As the climate and oceans change due to global warming and increased carbon dioxide in the environment, pH, temperature, and salinity will all change as well. This week, there was a large bloom of bioluminescent dinoflagellates near big sur and which is sparking questions about how climate change is affecting them. Looking at the effects of those three variables will help people better understand California’s coastal ecosystem and will give us a better idea of what the oceans will look like in the future.

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January 22, 2018 - Internships

This week I have been looking into many different summer internships and programs for this upcoming summer. I discovered one laboratory in Maine Connected to Cornell which has several summer programs for high schoolers and would give me an opportunity to do hands on research in a lab over the summer. Another program which I have started to apply to is a summer program in Greenland run by Dartmouth which leads high school trips to do polar science with a group of international students. I still need to look into more research opportunities closer to home as backup but I am very excited about the opportunities I have discovered and I think that it would be very beneficial to my project to be able to gain experience in a lab over the summer.

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January 11, 2018 - Goals

Over the past semester I have worked hard on narrowing down my focus, doing research on my topic and reaching out to experts in my field in order to get a better understanding of what professionals are doing in the lab and what is feasible for me to do. Although I have made great progress with this, I need to read a few more papers to fill in gaps in my knowledge and polish up and clarify my research proposal. After this, my next step will be submitting applications for water collecting permits. However, as the research proposals are often a major part of this application, I will spend the next week making sure that it all makes sense and that nothing is missing.

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Please feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts.