Blogs

Monday and Tuesday:
     So I was extremely excited to begin this week of work because I had finally received observation data from three of the Centers sensors out in Cunningham Slough on Sauvie Island. I began Monday by essentially looking at the data in a spreadsheet trying to make sense of what it meant. I pretty much understood the temperature, and pressure readings, but the depth readings, measured in feet, and did not make sense. They consisted of numbers ranging from 45 to 65 ft. Way to deep to be coming out of Cunningham Slough. Later that day I find out that the censors we are using were calibrated for the atmosphere in Denver, Colorado, and thus were not corresponding to proper pressure calibration down in Portland. I thought this was really interesting not only because I knew the values did not make sense, but mainly because of an error that you would not normally think of. I now just have to wait to hear back from some other people about how this problem can be resolved. 

My first week here at CMOP was very exciting and extremely productive. On Monday, I met all of the 2012 CMOP interns except for Julia. Vanessa gaves us an orientation and after we each got to meet our mentors. I'm working in the Zuber lab with Ben Li, and my project title is: Understanding Dinoflagellate population and diversity in the Columbia River Estuary.

 This is my second year being an intern a CMOP and like last year I'm working with Charles Seaton's data annotation project. I've switched mentors to Alex Jaramillo but that was truly the only change. My senior mentor, David Maier, is the same and I'm working with my old code.

Undergraduate college students from around the United States have arrived at CMOP to work with world-renowned faculty and perform cutting-edge research. A total of 12 students were accepted in CMOP's summer undergraduate internship program. A web page is available where you can learn more about each intern, read their research projects, and find links to their weekly blogs.
Learn more about the 2012 summer undergraduate interns.

This week started out a little slow.  My mentor is off to present at a conference Monday and Tuesday, so she's been pretty busy preparing for that, not to mention the entire CMOP facility preparing for the arrival of NSF at the end of this month.

I started at CMOP on the 4th of June with Logan, Marc, and Connor.  We met with Vanessa Green and learned the ins and outs of the CMOP facility, current research at the center, and got to meet our mentors.  I'm working with Mouzhong Xu, a 5th year Ph.D. student here at CMOP working with Holly Simon. 

The center has been really busy with finishing the annual report and getting ready for the NSF site visit here in two weeks. It is amazing to see how all of the scientists come together with all the different ideas to develop one concrete solution. 

I arrived in Oregon on a Saturday and immediately began to familiarize myself with area, especially how to get to CMOP from the apartments. I did not really know what to expect, as I have not yet had the chance to really get into the environmental science realm while in college. I arrived at CMOP at 8:30 am with an open mind and ready to go. I went through orientation, which was informal and to the point. We learned the dos and don’ts of the center.

I never thought I would enjoy reading so many scientific papers.  Over the weekend and throughout the week I familiarized myself with my main project, which is focused on particleomics.  I never knew the impacts particles can have on the environment and the ways they can be indicators of the health/state of the environment.  It was interesting to read how particles are characterized and the methods used to detect and define them.  Even more exciting is that I was able to actually use some of those methods.

My first week at CMOP was very exciting.  Right off the bat I was given the task to wrap up a project that a graduate student, Amanda Mather, had been working on.  My senior investigator, Dr. Paul Tratnyek, was expecting usable data and a short write-up on my results by the end of the week.  The results were to be given to a local company who built the water purification system I was working on.