Coastal Marine Education and Research Academy
Clearwater, Fl May 2023 – June 2023
Internship
- Participate in various lectures about all aspects of elasmobranchs like shark anatomy, conservation efforts for various species of sharks and rays, evolution, etc.
- Participate in hands-on work to learn how to use nets and fishing lines to catch the sharks.
- Once caught we learned how to determine the sex of the organisms we caught as well as how to properly take accurate measurements of the organism’s body and then how to safely release them back into the ocean once everything was completed.
University of Central Florida January 2023 – May 2023
Directed Independent Research
- Conducting experiments on the ratio of voltage to current in live electric fish such as Gymnotus carapo, Gymnotus javari, Brachyhypopomus beebei and more than 10 other species of electric knifefish. This project explores impedance matching in gymnotiform electric knife fish.
R/V Hogarth – Florida Institute of Oceanography January 2023
- While participating in my Advanced Marine Biology course we spent a day-long of research-intensive work on the R/V Hogarth, where I conducted various hands-on activities like plankton towing, trawling with a net equipped with a TED, water column sampling using CTD, species identification, and phytoplankton microscopy to gain insight on the diversity of the marine organisms in Tampa Bay.
Advanced Marine Biology (Research Intensive Course)
[Biology Field Research Center] January 2023 – May 2023
- Helped collect various biological field samples taken from multiple different sites along marine bodies of water and also helped measure salinity using refractometers.
- Assisted in harvesting of propagules of pioneer mangroves and marsh grass saplings to help propagate them and once fully grown, use the mature marsh grass samples which were essential in protecting the newly planted mangroves and preserving the shoreline.
- Assisted in taking various measurements at a large oyster reef to help find data that could help determine the relationship between mangrove trees and oyster shells and how the acidity of the water in close proximity to the mangrove trees effects the way in which oysters build their shells.
- Researched how the effects of hurricanes impacted the concentration of microplastics in the Indian River Lagoon, FL by analyzing water samples we collected at various locations around Florida post Hurricanes Ian and Nicole.
- Researched how mangrove encroachment and the process of acidification from their leaf litter may impact the slow disintegration of oyster reef shells in Mosquito Lagoon, Fl while also observing and recording various measurements such as the dimensions and densities of mangroves on the oyster reefs, herbivory damage to mangrove leaves, and the amount of dropped mangrove leaves onto reefs in close proximity to the actual mangroves.
