Marine Knowledge is Power: Predicting Ocean Resources for Coastal Communities

Big ocean changes are happening, but global trends may not accurately represent what happens in coastal regions. With support from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), UConn marine scientist Samantha Siedlecki’s research aims to help address this gap in knowledge.

Through a new NCAR program launching this summer, Siedlecki will couple global models with regionally refined systems so that coastal communities can better predict what biogeochemical changes their waters might face in the future. Her NCAR project focuses specifically on coastal biogeochemistry and health metrics relevant to marine resource management on the Northeast Atlantic shelf.

UConn Today: https://today.uconn.edu/school-stories/marine-knowledge-is-power/Twitter: https://twitter.com/UConnResearch/status/1131164302327595009LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6536935526912573441

Jim O’Donnell is a professor of marine sciences at UConn and leader of the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Change. He sat down with Face the Facts With Max Reiss to talk about our changing climate and what impacts Connecticut residents could see in the future, especially along the shoreline Face the Facts With Max Reiss airs Sundays at 10 a.m.

Yan Jia, Qiang Sun, Prof. Michael Whitney, and Steven Deignan-Schmidt at the doctoral commencement ceremony.

Gihong Park, Youngmi Shin, and Prof. James O’Donnell at the doctoral commencement ceremony.

Christopher Murray after the doctoral commencement ceremony.

Prof. Penny Vlahos and Allison Byrd after the master’s commencement ceremony.

Marine Sciences graduates and faculty at the Senior Recognition Ceremony at Avery Point on May 10, 2019.

In collaboration with Project Oceanology, the graduate students from Department of Marine Sciences hosted workshops for middle schoolers to teach them about marine sciences and research being done in the department. Students extracted DNA from strawberries and put it in necklaces for all to see. Another workshop had students identify plankton under microscopes.

Thanks to students from the McManus, Lin, and Dam Labs for organizing and running these activities, and inspiring the next generation of scientists.

On April 30th, four graduate students from the Marine Sciences Department traveled to UConn, Storrs to present their research at UConn’s 2nd Climate Research Symposium cohosted by the Geology and Marine Sciences departments. The students were Kelly McGarry (Ph.D student; top left), Halle Berger (Master’s student; top right), Sarah McCart (Master’s student; bottom left) and Alec Shub (Master’s student; bottom right). Everyone’s presentations were well received, and Sarah McCart even won the graduate student poster competition!

The event featured two keynote speakers; Professor Margaret Rubega of UConn, and Professor Tim Cronin of MIT. Professor Rubega talked about science communication and how the scientific community could better communicate their climate change research to non-scientists without using overbearing jargon and too many words. Professor Cronin gave a speech on his past research on the suppression of Arctic air formation with climate warming.

By Callie Concannon

A new website highlighting the Long Island Sound Habitat Mapping Initiative went live on Earth Day. The website provides information on the background and motivation for the mapping initiative, summaries of the field work conducted, interpretive story maps describing some of the results, links to data products and publications generated and multimedia links to images and video of at-sea operations that illustrate the beauty and complexity of the underwater habitats of the Sound.

https://lismap.uconn.edu/