Daquan Davis
Hey there! My name is Daquan Davis and I am an Environmental Science major and rising senior at University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). I have always been interested in starting a program to enable food producers and industries to be more environmentally friendly, and stop using unsustainable resources. So I am really motivated to start my Research Project with Dr. Hal Schreier, because I will be looking at the bacterial community of denitrifying bacteria in the biological filters of recirculating marine aquaculture systems. These bacteria clean up the sludge from fish tanks, converting the waste to methane. This means we don’t have to dispose of waste from our fish tanks. The recirculating system here is a great example of environmental sustainability, and I am grateful to be a part of making this system even better!
Aaron Johnson
Hello, I am Aaron Johnson: a Health & Societies major and rising junior at the University of Pennsylvania. My school is awesome because it provides rigorous science courses for undergrads and has all sorts of biological, psychological, environmental and social research available for undergrad participation. My training this summer will prepare me to engage in them more fully. My summer Research Project at IMET is with the team of Aquaculture Research Center bioengineers. The focus is on optimization of biological filters for intensive culture of salmon larvae in the recirculating marine aquaculture system, a new initiative here. This past week in lab I got to observe changes in gas composition from our diverse biowaste digestors (AKA bacterial communities) and quantitatively 3 analyze them. I am so grateful for the chance to be engaging in real research, because science gives us the will and the way to change and improve our world.
Nylah McClain
My name is Nylah McClain, and this is my second summer as an intern at IMET. I am an Environmental Science major and a rising junior at UMES. I really love how the UMES campus looks, a big contrast to downtown Baltimore. It’s really beautiful when the flowers are blooming or when it’s snowing. Since my first year at UMES, I have taken advantage of every research opportunity available which will help me shape my future course. This year at IMET I am joining Dr. Ten-Tsao Wong to study the impact of induced sterility on sexual maturation and growth performance in sablefish (that’s tasty black cod to most people). Our expectation is that sterile fish will grow faster, and so cost less to raise to market size. In my first week I was successful in anesthetizing fish so I could retrieve blood samples from them. I don’t know why, but the idea of putting a fish to sleep didn’t cross my mind before. Being in research rocks because it explains the process behind things. I have had a lot of “oh so that’s why that happens” moments this week. Thank you to IMET and our donors for making this happen for me!
Kane Samuel
Hi, my name is Kane Samuel and I am a Chemistry major, recently graduated from Frostburg State University. My favorite course was physical chemistry, which is totally scary to most students. I was the only one taking it that semester, so I was basically taught directly by the professor in his office. While at Frostburg, I worked with Dr. Mark Castro, at the UMCES Appalachian Laboratories, testing mercury levels in soy and corn crops in Maryland. This experience encouraged me to seek more research experiences. My summer Research Project at IMET is with the company, Zooquatics. I will be comparing identification methods for fish bacterial pathogens using MALDI TOF analysis of metabolites and 16S rDNA metabarcoding.
Amaya Simpson
Hi I am Amaya Simpson, a rising sophomore in Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. Something cool about USC is that even though my major is Environmental Science, USC really wants us to have a well-rounded approach to difficult problems that we might come across in our professional lives. For example, I took environmental economics last semester, which taught me the economic approach to sustainability and best practices. The research project I am working on at IMET is with Dr. Jim Du. I am going to examine the genetic regulation of zebrafish muscle development and growth. In my first week, I compared the weight of wildtype zebrafish with fish that had a particular mutation in a muscle protein to see if the mutation was affecting muscle growth and development. In order to do that, I had to weigh fish, keeping them on a scale and covering them really quickly so that they wouldn’t flop off the scale, while I recorded their weight (yes, the fish did flop around!).
Abdul Adaranijo
Hello, I am Abdul Adaranijo, an Environmental Science major, and rising senior, at Towson State University. I am supported 50% as a Bunting Fellow and 50% by the Waterfront Partnership. I am working with Dr. Eric Schott and Ana Sosa looking at the microorganisms and invertebrates in the Baltimore Harbor using DNA metabarcoding. To the right, is a picture of a DNA gel, the fluorescent bands you see are DNA. On the far left is a
commercial ladder for sizing and the bands halfway on the right are amplified targeted Baltimore Harbor microbial DNA generated by a PCR reaction. It worked! Good job Abdul!
Nicholas Camacho
My name is Nicholas Camacho. I moved from Guam to Stanford University and have just finished my freshman year. In Dr. Chen’s lab I am studying the bacterial communities associated with different microplastics in seawater with graduate student, Ana Sosa. Here I am plating bacteria from the microplastics.
Adjele "Ruth" Wilson
Hello there! I’m Adjele Wilson, but most people call me Ruth. My major is Biology and I am a rising senior at UMES. UMES is an HBCU and my student experience there is different from any other, because at UMES, I am not a minority. For my internship project I and working with Dr. Sook Chung looking at the role of eIF4E translation factors in the regulation of neuropeptide hormones controlling crustacean growth. The first week I learned that female crabs are called ”sooks,” which also happens to be the name of my mentor. This is a fun coincidence and interesting because she was the first to discover a reproductive hormone in female crabs.
Heather Levine
Hi, my name is Heather Levine, a rising senior at University of Maryland, College Park in Civil and Environmental Engineering. I am supported by the Chesapeake C-Stream to work in Dr. Place’s lab. With graduate student, Taylor Armstrong, I am monitoring a cyanobacteria that causes toxic blooms but seems to be deterred by barley straw. Here I am watching them passing through a flow cytometer.