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Week 6 - The Visitors
Submitted by Ashley Anhalt on July 18, 2011 - 1:56pm
This week I had the privilege of taking part in the National Science Foundation (NSF) site visit. CMOP was evaluated on many levels and there were a bunch of very informative and interesting presentations on subjects such as plankton, acidification, biogeochemical dynamics and modeling, estuarine turbidity, data management, education, diversity, and more. It was fascinating to witness the site visit in person and get a taste of the administration process of funding.
With regards to my project, my mentors and I would say that I am providing an enabling approach that could be applied to any of the four science initiatives. Rather than my project being connected specifically to any one of the initiatives, my approach could help to identify indicators of environmental conditions or potentially identify sentinels of change, which is related to all of the science initiatives. The four initiatives include: Estuarine Hypoxia and Acidification in the Columbia River Estuary, Formation and dynamics of M.rubra redwater blooms in The Columbia River estuary and their effects on estuarine biogeochemistry, Biogeochemical Dynamics of Lateral Bays, and Physics and Biogeochemistry of Estuarine Turbidity Maxima (ETM).
With another week coming to a close I can feel the downhill slope getting steeper and steeper. The feel of all the pressure building is like feeling the walls starting to close in. I need to hone in on the statistical analysis required for my project, write my final paper, give a final presentation, prepare for future conferences – basically I need to get as much done in the next four weeks and get the most out of my CMOP opportunity.
On the plus side, mid-term presentations went very well. Although I did not feel as though I gave a quality presentation, I was told otherwise. It was very neat to hear about the other interns’ projects and start making the mental connections between projects.
I also had a wonderful week outside of work: Our mountain adventure hike on Saturday was incredibly tiring, but very fun nonetheless. I visited the Oregon Zoo on Tuesday and of course, I went to see the premier of the last Harry Potter movie on Thursday night with the other interns; that was bloody brilliant!
