Blogs

This years 6th Annual EBS Research Symposium had over 25 presenters ranging in education from undergraduates to postdoctoral scientists. The posters were evaluated by a panel of three judges and the best poster from each category was selected as the winner. Congratulations to CMOP scientists Ben Li and Michele Maier for winning best posters in the post-doctoral and advanced doctoral students (3+ yrs) categories.

Ben Li presents his poster to professor Rick Johnson on "Physical and biological controls on Mesodinium rubrum blooms in the lower Columbia River estuary."

It is always great to see how CMOP is translating our transformative research for the next generation of scientists.

On March 9th, Holly Simon (photo left in black vest) and her research group gave young students eye-opening demonstrations on how real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), SHARP sensor arrays and the Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) are used to identify microorganisms in environmental samples.

Acknowledgements:
We thank the captain, crew and scientific party of the M/V Forerunner, R/V Barnes and R/V Wecoma, and Michael Wilkin (OHSU) for his help with sample collection in 2007.

We would like to welcome Jo Goodman to the CMOP team. She joins us from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she recently recieved a Master's degree in Marine Science.

Jo has been appointed Ocean Observatory Technician with the field team in Astoria. She will assist in deploying and maintaining the SATURN observation network in the Columbia River estuary, plume and shelf.
 

This is Clair, our new Environmental Sample Processor (ESP). She is a field-deployable system – developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and commercialized by Spyglass – that will be used to collect water samples from the Columbia River estuary, concentrate microorganisms or other particles of interest, analyze them using molecular techniques, and transmit the results. We are working on a story about how CMOP plans to use modeling to decide when the ESP should take samples.

In the meantime, here is a photo of Spyglass Chief Information Architect, Paul Janecek and CMOP scientists, Mariya Smit, Charles Seaton, and Vena Hayes going over the functionality of the ESP.

CMOP researchers are presenting this week at the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting, an international gathering of science experts. This is a major venue for CMOP to exchange scientific knowledge with more than 4,000 attendees.
 

You may need ESP to know what is under the pink plastic covering.

What I do know is that CMOP is one of only a few select research labs in the world that has this device and it will advance our research capabilities in molecular biological analyses.

Three CMOP products have been recently added to the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) products page.

A mobile version of "NANOOS Tsunami Evacuation Zones" for Android - a project developed by Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) with support from CMOP - has been released and available at the Android market.

American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) are considered valuable stewards of their homelands and are the least represented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)disciplines resulting in insufficient numbers of skilled AI/AN to manage valuable resources in uncertain times.

• Proposed curriculum develops a geographical cultural context to place STEM knowledge to increase interest in middle to high school AI/AN children.