Congratulations to Dr. Patricia Myer, the department’s newest PhD! Here is a description and some photos of Dr. Myer’s PhD journey, in her own words.

My Ph.D. dissertation defense was on March 20^th, 2023, and titled “A Critical Examination of the Factors Controlling Methylmercury Uptake into Marine Plankton.”

I am a student in Dr. Robert Mason’s group and my research includes a three-year long time series of methylmercury in phytoplankton in Narragansett Bay, RI, a research cruise in the Northwest Pacific (NOAA GU1905), and laboratory uptake experiments with the dinoflagellate O. marina.

The goal of these projects was ultimately to compare the effects of biological and environmental variables (e.g., cell size, temperature, dissolved organic matter) between laboratory experiments and environmental studies to try to disentangle the leading drivers of methylmercury accumulation into plankton. The main takeaway is that relationships seen in laboratory experiments, both from my work and the literature, are not nearly as straightforward in the environment. There is a lot more work to be done to understand these complex relationships.

Currently, I have one publication from my prior undergraduate work (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-022-02548-0) and one from my work in the Mason lab that is not part of my dissertation (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134609). I am currently preparing three papers relating to my dissertation for publication.

This work was funded by NSF Chemical Oceanography and the UConn Predoctoral Award.

Nearly all living organisms have a collection of bacteria that live within or on their body and provide essential functions, such as aiding digestion and neutralizing toxins. An important community of microbes primarily located in the gastrointestinal tract of animals is known as the gut microbiome. Scientists are working to understand the complex interactions between the gut microbiome and both essential body functions and disease. One way to study the benefits of the microbiome is to analyze organisms with reduced or eliminated microbiomes. These organisms are lacking the bacteria that may help them mediate environmental stressors.

Griffin et al. (2021) presents the development of a methodology to perturb the gut microbiome in bivalves using antibiotics. This methodology can be valuable to further research by providing a technique that produces animals with reduced or eliminated gut microbiomes without killing the hosts. The project began with the PhD work of Dr. Melissa Pierce, a previous student in Prof. Ward’s lab. Her work exposed oysters (Crassostrea virginica) to a cocktail of antibiotics for 4 days, but didn’t observe any significant changes in the diversity of gut microbes. Tyler Griffin’s work extended the exposure period to 3 weeks and used the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis), which is a commonly used bivalve for lab experimentation. As this was his first PhD research project, Griffin reflected that learning when to be independent and learning when to ask for help were some of his biggest challenges. He cited the help of Bridget Holohan and former Ward lab postdoc Dr. Lisa Nigro as invaluable.

As shown in the flow chart, bivalves were exposed to antibiotics in individual microcosms, or mason jars, and fed a microalgae stock culture that was sterilized by boiling. Three antibiotics were chosen to inhibit a broad group of bacteria. At the end of the experiment, mussels were dissected and analyzed by a few different methods to determine the effect on the microbiome. Through a chance conversation with and help from Dr. Brittany Sprecher, a previous PhD student in Dr. Senjie Lin’s lab, Griffin chose quantitative polymerase chain reaction, or qPCR, which is a technology used for quantifying genes, to check for the total number of bacteria in the gut. qPCR results showed that mussels exposed to antibiotics had a reduced number of bacteria, and other techniques showed reduced microbial species richness and shifts in the whole community composition. Essentially, the antibiotics had successfully reduced the number and type of the bacteria in the gut microbiome, which supported the hypothesis that prolonged exposure to antibiotics can perturb the gut microbiome of bivalves. 

Moving forward, Griffin hopes other researchers can use these methods to study other bivalve species, other microbiomes on different body sites, such as the gill, or even other suspension feeders such as gastropods or ascidians.

Griffin, T. W., Pierce, M. L., Nigro, L. M., Holohan, B. A., & Ward, J. E. (2021). An examination of the use of antibiotics as a method to experimentally perturb the microbiota of suspension-feeding bivalves. Invertebrate Biology, 140( 4), e12352. https://doi.org/10.1111/ivb.12352

For 30 years, Elise Hayes served as the Department of Marine Sciences Business Manager, called the Marine Sciences Institute at the time of her hiring. She began her time at UConn Avery Point as an undergraduate student, spending breaks working with the National Undersea Research Center and ultimately earning a bachelor’s degree through the UConn Account program. During her tenure, she worked with six department heads/center directors including Richard Cooper, Robert Whitlatch, James O’Donnell, Ann Bucklin, James Edson and Evan Ward.

During her time at UConn, Hayes had the opportunity to participate in many exciting moments. She recalls the opportunity to join a research cruise in the Gulf of Maine and participate in a dive on a 2-person submersible, attending the christening and launch of the RV Connecticut in Maine, and participating in an RV Connecticut cruise to release two pilot whales that were rehabilitated at the Mystic Aquarium as highlights of her time here.

As Business Manager, Hayes managed all administrative activities including pre-award and post-award grant management as well as payroll and oversight of purchasing, accounts payable and recharge center activities, among other duties. Her valuable ability to manage the many moving parts of dozens of grants and accounts earned her the gratitude and respect of faculty, staff, and students, and the department will sorely miss her after her retirement at the end of March this year. Post-retirement, she plans to spend more time on her hobby farm where she raises a horse and donkey, goats, and recently acquired some lambs, and spend time at her cottage in Maine.

In response to the increased focus in recent years on improving diversity in higher education, particularly STEM fields, the Department of Marine Sciences created a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) committee. This committee includes Professors Dave Lund and Samantha Siedlecki, Research Operations Manager Dennis Arbige, graduate student Mikayla Baer, and undergraduate Larissa Tabb. The committee primarily focuses on JEDI issues that affect our department, but has met with the director of UConn’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and presented about our department’s efforts on UConn’s main campus. Dr. Lund explains the goal of the committee: “The overall goal of the JEDI committee is to enhance the diversity of the department and make it more inclusive to people with a range of backgrounds (including gender, racial and sexual orientation). In doing so, our hope is to improve access to resources and education in DMS, which in the long term will make our field a more just place.  Additional details about our mission/goals can be found on the departmental JEDI website.” 

The department as a whole raised questions and concerns about diversity and inclusion through a climate survey. The JEDI committee took the results of this survey as well as their observations of areas of need to develop specific goals. Dr. Lund said, “One of the main concerns raised amongst committee members is the lack of racial diversity in our speaker series, which we have started to address by gathering demographic information on the invited speakers. We need some baseline information to understand how we’re doing and where we can improve. One other issue that’s come out of the committee is the lack of transparency in the university’s bias reporting process (an issue originally raised in our departmental URGE pod). As a result of this input, we approached the Avery Point administration and they have set up workshops on the topic in collaboration with university representatives from main campus, including one for faculty and staff on April 7 and one for students that we’re told will occur later in the term. One of the other main topics we’re trying to address is that of diversity in our student body. Unfortunately, this is a common issue for Earth science departments around the country.  To address this issue, there have been two main activities. The first is that the GRE requirement for admissions has now been waived, given its expense, poor predictive ability, and apparent bias towards racial minority groups. The other activity was to become a partner with the AGU Bridge Program, whose goal is to match students from under-represented minority (URM) groups with graduate Earth science programs around the country.” DMS has had several success stories of URM graduates who have secured academic positions at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Connecticut College, and the Harte Research Institute, among other positions.  The goal of partnering with the Bridge Program was to further DMS efforts in this area. 

The AGU Bridge program has been in place since 2019, and is intended to increase opportunities for students from historically marginalized populations to obtain graduate degrees and create a network of peers, mentors, and advisers to support and serve them before, during and after grad school. Applications to this program are competitive, with a success rate of 28% in 2021. Dr. Lund explained that the decision to apply to the Bridge program was straightforward based on the concerns raised by the department and committee. The application process involved writing a proposal that made the case that our department was deserving of a partnership based on previous progress in the JEDI area, such as the departmental climate survey, removal of GRE requirements, and URGE pod (see the Spring 2021 newsletter to read more about this). 

Additionally, the JEDI committee worked on putting together a Bridge fellowship fund to match funding for this program received from the Dean through a separate proposal, and raised nearly 3 times their initial goal.  Dr. Lund comments, “Our hope is that by becoming a Bridge partner we will have access to a group of students that typically wouldn’t apply to DMS. Given that this is our first year, it’s hard to know how it will go, but we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to attract strong applicants, in part because of ongoing JEDI activities in DMS and in part because faculty have come together to contribute funds to help create a Bridge fellowship. Our discussions with the Bridge program indicate that we are the only department amongst the current 46 partners to have the fellowship subsidized by faculty research funds. So I think that’s something to celebrate – DMS faculty collectively came together to demonstrate that we’re committed to improving diversity in the department.”