Outreach

Finally in person again: Feng Graduate Research Colloquium 2023!

Feng-2023-Group-Photo
On 18 May 2023, Department of Marine Sciences graduate students and faculty came together for the 14th Biennial Feng Graduate Research Colloquium

18 May 2023. After a COVID-forced hiatus of more than two years, our department finally held a successful Feng graduate student research colloquium in person again. The Feng Graduate Research Colloquium has been a tradition in the Marine Sciences Department since 1996. Named after the first Head of the Department of Marine Sciences, Dr. Sung Y. Feng, the colloquium was started by Prof. Hans Dam. The colloquium acts as a conference in which students receive friendly, constructive criticism, and have the opportunity to work on developing their abstract writing, leadership, and scientific communication skills. The Colloquium is funded by the Department of Marine Sciences and the S.Y. Feng Scholarship Fund.

This years colloquium featured 16 oral presentations and 20 posters spanning the entire diversity of marine research in our department. Special thanks to the student organizers and Debra Schuler for the help behind the scenes.

See the colloquium list of talks and poster presentations, including abstracts

RileyPena---OceanScience

Our [student] Life on the Ocean

Cruise-potpourri

By Ewaldo Leitao.
When we say we work or study oceanography, it is common for us to be met with a: “Wow, you must spend a lot of time doing cool stuff in the ocean then!” Alas, most of us spend most of our time on a computer. However, cruises are still an essential part of oceanographic research to collect the necessary data or test equipment. In our department, many students have this opportunity to participate in such cruises; all with fascinating and unique research interests. Over the past year, several students joined cruises to get familiar with field techniques, collect their own data, or to better understand their study area. In this piece, graduate students in our Marine Sciences department shared their experiences in cruises that took place from Summer 2022 up to May 2023.

Graham Trolley, graduate student at the Dierssen OPTICS lab went on a cruise to measure microplastics optics in the great pacific garbage patch!

Cruise-potpourri
Graham Trolley preparing to deploy a neuston net to collect plastics for his spectrometry measurements.

Graham-Picture-2
An example of plastics collected during one of the net tow.

“In the Summer 2022 I participated in the Sea Education Association (SEA) summer cruise through the great pacific garbage patch, which sailed from Honolulu, HI to San Diego CA, starting In late June and ending in late July. SEA typically runs programs with undergraduates, who take part in cruises to learn about oceanography, sailing, and earn course credit. As a grad student, I was able to tag along as a visiting scientist and focus on collecting data.

My research focused on taking optical measurements, such as spectral reflectance, of freshly-collected plastic pieces. Previous work has been published on plastic spectral reflectance properties, but these measurements were made on dried and stored samples. Out in the environment, plastic pieces are likely to have some degree of biofilming growing on them. So, I sought to collect spectral reflectance measurements of freshly collected plastics in order to assess how the presence of biofilms might impact plastic spectral reflectance. Knowing this will be useful for sensitivity analyses seeking to develop a satellite-based ocean plastic detection algorithm.

During the cruise, I conducted daily neuston net tows to collect plastic pieces. Neuston nets are towed along the surface of the water to collect as many buoyant plastic pieces as possible. Once collected, I rinsed the plastics out of the net and into a bucket, then picked them out and aggregated them for spectral measurement.”


Mackenzie-Picture-3
Mackenzie Blanusa (left) getting ready to deploy a mixed layer float on the SMODE IOP1 cruise.

Mackenzie Blanusa, physical oceanography graduate student, does a lot of math and computer work, but she had the opportunity to take part in two different cruises in the last academic year! She got some hands-on experience in the first one, and in the second she is participating in the cruise that collects data for her study area in the Brazil Margin.

“I participated in NASA’s Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) IOP1 as part of the science party aboard the R/V Bold Horizon. The cruise took place from 10/06/2022 – 11/04/2022 in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 100 miles offshore of San Francisco, California. The focus of this experiment was to sample ocean fronts that are a few kilometers in size to study their dynamics and effects on vertical transport. The ocean fronts were sampled using aircraft, ship surveying, and autonomous platforms such as wave gliders, sea gliders, saildrones, floats, and drifters. I worked the night shift from 4pm – 4am, running an instrument called an EcoCTD, which measures temperature, salinity, pressure, chlorophyll, backscatter, and oxygen. I also helped with the recovery and deployment of wave gliders and mixed layer floats.

I am currently (03/06/2023 – 04/06/2023) aboard NOAA’s R/V Ronald H. Brown for U.S. GO-SHIP’s decadal reoccupation of A16N in the Atlantic Ocean. I am participating in the first leg of the cruise, sailing from Brazil to Spain. The second leg of the cruise will be sailing from Spain to Iceland. This is a longline hydrographic cruise, where we take CTD casts at many stations along the same longitude line. The CTD rosette has 24 bottles and is deployed to the bottom of the ocean. I am working with Dr. Chris Langdon’s research lab out of the University of Miami. The Langdon lab is leading measurements on oxygen, pH, and total alkalinity. I am overseeing pH measurements using a spectrophotometer. Other groups are taking measurements which include DIC, DOC, CFCs, velocity, temperature, salinity, and biological samples. The best part of my trip so far has been getting to explore Brazil, crossing the equator, and viewing beautiful sunrises every morning.”


Yipeng He, alumnus of the Mason Mercury Lab, studied air-sea mercury exchange in the ocean for his PhD, also had cool research experiences in cruises.

“I was on a scientific cruise - the GEOTRACES GP17 cruise, leaving San Diego (CA) on Nov 13 2022. Going from North Pacific to South Pacific, crossing the Equator, going further south and crossing the Antarctic cycle, and arriving at Punta Arena (Chile) on Jan 25 (2023). The boat was R/V Roger Revelle, which was my second time sailing on this boat. The first time was the GEOTRACES GP15 cruise in 2018. I was collecting samples and measuring atmospheric mercury species, air-sea exchange of mercury species and surface ocean Beryllium-7 profile.”

Yipeng-Figure-4
Yipeng He with his atmospheric Hg speciation system on R/V Roger Revelle during the GEOTRACES GP17 cruise.

Kayla Mladinich Poole receives R. LeRoy Creswell Award for Outreach and Education

Kayla Mladinich Poole, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marine Sciences, was awarded the R. LeRoy Creswell Award for Outreach and Education through the National Shellfisheries Association (NSA). Kayla was selected for her extensive communications and outreach experience with the public and in STEM, as well as for her work as an active volunteer at the annual NSA conferences. Kayla is the first recipient of the award created to honor R. LeRoy Creswell’s life and impressive work in outreach and extension services. Congratulations, Kayla!

 

Kayla and Prof. Evan Ward collecting samples in the field
Kayla analyzing samples in the lab

“Harmony of Nature”: environmental data becomes music

By Ewaldo Leitao.

Science communication has many flavors, kinds, and sounds. One way by which that can happen is when nature or science produce “noise” that can be channeled into sounds. That can be done using architecture (Sea Organ), or reinterpreting a field of science (Quantum Computer Music). Sometimes, this combination of sound and science can be a deliberate choice, creating music.

DMS student Molly James and musician Hea Youn Chung (Sophy) combined their expertises and interests to explore this intersection between science and music. Molly plays trombone in her free time at a community orchestra. Sophy is a professional pianist and teacher at Yewon Arts School (Seoul, South Korea) who did her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at The Juilliard School. What initially joined these two at the dead of the pandemic was a mutual language assistance: Molly wanted to learn Korean, and Sophy, back in South Korea, wanted to continue practicing English.

Molly-and-Sophy-in-Seoul
Molly and Sophy in Seoul - South Korea

And that’s how “Harmony of Nature” was born. A beautiful collaboration that converts natural phenomena into sounds through coding technology and expresses them in classical music. The project was funded by the Art & Tech program by Arts Council Korea. The data was collected using temperature loggers deployed in several sites across South Korea, along with freely available data from several spots. “I statistically analyzed this data and created multiple graphs using the open-source coding language Python. I shared them with Sophy and discussed the scientific interpretations. Together, we collaborated on what scientific aspects became what musical aspects.” said Molly, about the process of data collection and curation, prior to its translation into music.

“Like expressing human emotions through musical instruments, I have always wanted to express natural phenomena that we cannot see but can feel through sound. While envisioning this project, I focused on conveying natural phenomena through sound.” said Sophy. “For various expressions, I try to incorporate nuances such as shape and texture into the performance. In this project, the weight of the waves, the ebb and flow of the waves, the temperature changes, and the appearance of rain can be realized by various musical elements such as rhythm, dynamics, etc.”

Molly python plot
Air temperature measurement collected at the weather station in Incheon, South Korea. Period of observation was the first week of December 2021. The data observed in this figure was used to compose the song “One Week in Incheon”.

The composition “One Week in Incheon” directly came from hourly air temperature measurements collected at a weather station by the Korean Meteorological Administration Incheon branch 112. Other data, such as wave height, flow and ebb tides, were also analyzed in order to compose some pieces. “During this performance, I hope you can feel changes in temperatures, drops of rain, speed of the winds, and height of the waves”, says Molly. More songs can be found on Spotify or AppleMusic.

Science needs to reach out to the public, informing in different, inventive, artistic ways. Art is powerful. Collaborations between science and art will thrive as each part can use their unique skills to result in beautiful projects, such as this one.


DMS grad students do outreach in local elementary school

By Ewaldo Leitao.

Academic institutions have a tendency to stay in the “Ivory Tower” and be distant from their surrounding communities. Scientific communication and outreach is a great way to minimize the gap between institutions and their communities, and to educate the new generation, especially about environmental awareness. We in the Marine Sciences Department try our best to be aware of this and reach out to communities in order to explain what we do. During the Ocean Week (June 7-9), Prof. Hannes Baumann and Dr. Zosia Baumann, reached out to the Catherine Kolnaski Steam Magnet School, in Groton/CT to give science talks about various marine science topics.

Cover picture - WorldOceanDay
Prof. Hannes Baumann explaining 'who eats whom' in the ocean

Zosia introduced the Long Island Sound and its importance to 2nd grade students. Then the kids split up to visit various stations. The stations were led by graduate students Ewaldo Leitão, Lingjie Zhou, Max Zavell, Jenna O’del (URI), Molly James, and Dr. Susan Smith. Each one showcased their area of expertise, but catered to 2nd graders.

There were four different stations. Ewaldo and Susan explained plankton and their importance, despite their tiny size, connecting with the kids using the famous Plankton from SpongeBob Squarepants as an example and how it was created based on copepods. To grab kids' attention, organisms were displayed in many different ways, with pictures, a dissecting scope that had a sample with shrimp, baby starfish, a concentrated sample of copepods, and finally a copepod under the microscope so that kids could see how similar copepods are to the Plankton.

Lingjie introduced the concept of DNA, and made the kids build their own DNA strand by using gummy candies and straws. She explained the bases of the DNA using gummies with different colors to represent each, and how they match in the strand. As a motivation, the kids could take their own DNA strand candy home.

Max and Jenna were explaining fish physiology and behavior. They used cleared and stained specimens to show bones and cartilage of the fish. These can determine important fish behavior such as schooling, which is easily observable in the wild.

Seastar
A baby sea star on the tip of a students finger

LinJi
Graduate student Lingjie Zhou demonstrating to the kids how to build DNA strands from candy

Finally Molly explained the physics of the ocean. Using dyes to color water with different salinities, she demonstrated how salty water is denser and therefore stays in the bottom of the less dense, freshwater. These are not just important concepts for the ocean, it is why the kids can buoy easier in the ocean compared to lakes.

There’s an inherent joy and challenge in explaining scientific concepts to kids. We, scientists, are often told to have our elevator pitch in many levels of expertise, in order to explain what we do to our mom and to a potential employer. But explaining to kids is a completely different game. They can have a rather short attention span and yet get easily fascinated by new things. Therefore, explaining scientific concepts requires a combination of teaching them in an exciting way, that is also engaging but simplified so that they are able to retain the knowledge.

Having said that, it is a delight to end these interactions by asking the kids what they have learned, and listening to their excitement when they describe what they have just seen and experienced. Scientific outreach to our youngest generation is a great way to create environmental awareness and to build minds who will take better care of our planet.