Blogs

CMOP graduate students Sheree Watson (top left), Estafania Lianeza-Garcia (top right), and Krissy Remple (bottom left) presented their findings at the OHSU Institute of Environmental Health's research symposium.  The 7th annual symposium took place March 15, 2013 on OHSU’s West Campus. The afternoon event showcased a wide range of research from 19 graduate students and four postdoctoral fellows.

Read the article about the symposium on the OHSU website.

The 2013 Marine Technology Society (MTS) student scholarship program is now open!

MTS offers thousands of dollars’ worth of scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students who are studying in the marine science, marine engineering and/or marine technology field. Scholarships are for MTS student members only. Student Membership for full-time college students and high school seniors is only $25 per year.

For more information, please visit their website: www.mtsociety.org/education/scholarships.aspx

Congratulations to Jim Carlson and John Dunlap, Sr. Principal Engineers at the Applied Physics Lab - University of Washington, for receiving the 2012 APL Science and Engineering Award!

They work with CMOP investigator Tom Sanford and received the award for their extraordinary scientific and engineering achievement to enhance APL's reputation as a premier center for science and technology. 

"They are a remarkable pair who have produced numerous successful ocean instruments, including the Winched and Sigma Profilers for CMOP," Sanford says.

The microbiologists at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) call their creation "Lab in a Can." We simply call her Clair. She is an Environmental Sample Processor (ESP), a highly sophisticated robotic instrument.

Antonio Baptista, director of CMOP, is currently in China giving presentations at several universities.  He is speaking on "Operational modeling of a complex estuary-plume system" at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Observatory, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Xiamen University, and Ocean University of China.

To the right is a poster created by the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to announce Dr. Baptista's talk.

(Craig McNeil, right, and Trina Litchendorf prepare AUV for deployment.)

There I was standing on the stern of the R/V Inferno as it came to a stop in the north channel of the Columbia River estuary. The sky had a broken overcast. The waves slowly rolled past. I wondered if Lewis and Clark - when they finally completed their route to the Pacific Ocean - viewed the same huge blooms of red water that I was looking at in the estuary.

(Jim Lerczak, center, goes over a new piece of equipment with the team.)

It was just another typical day in the Columbia River estuary. Typical in the sense that a heavy marine layer had visibility down to almost nothing. Yet the activities going on in the estuary were quite unique.
 

So, this week was interupted with me catching a terrible cold at the tail end of it.  Thus I am finishing everything a little later (aka the following Tuesday).  However, the last LacZ assay has been run, and...  INCONCLUSIVE!  Fun stuff and I am not even all that surprised anymore.  So yeah, the resD mutant strains seem to be odd little buggers who do not allow me to gather clean and repeatable results.  Instead of verifying one or the other of the two results, all I did was confirm that they both were viable results, grr!  So, wha

(Pictured left to right; Paul Tratnyek, Leslie Slasor, Joe Needoba, and Andrew Barnard)

Leslie Slasor, Oregon Health & Science University masters student, successfully defended her thesis today titled, "Slick Spectra: A Spectral Fluorescence Study of the Water-Accommodated Fraction of Crude Oil." Her oral presentation took us from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill to her research of the fluorescence properties associated with the water accommodated fraction of a variety of crude oils in seawater to further refine in situ instrument sensitivity for targeting Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds. Leslie's advisors included Joseph Needoba (OHSU Division of Environmental and Biomolecular Systems), Andrew Barnard (WET Labs), and Paul Tratnyek (OHSU Division of Environmental and Biomolecular Systems). Congratulations Leslie!

Watch Leslie's thesis defense.

 As one of the last interns in the building, I can attest to the fact that it gets a lot quieter and more dull without the other interns here. And, soon, all of us will be gone. But it's been really great to be able to work here this summer. I've really enjoyed meeting and working with the people in my lab, and getting a glimpse into what other labs do and what graduate researchers do. Overall, I look back at my summer experience as a good one, even with my repetitive tasks and the HPLC acting up. It was a wonderful learning experience, and I appreciate the opportunity that I had.