Each summer, a number of undergraduates from Brown work at labs at the MBL or at Brown-MBL field sites. In the summer of 2012, nine Brown undergraduates are working in various capacities in MBL labs or field sites.
Harriet Booth, Mara Freilich and John Ribbans were awarded Rosenthal Brown MBL LINK Awards for summer research. Harriet Booth is working with Linda Deegan at the Plum Island Long Term Ecological Research site (LTER) on how coastal eutrophication from increasing nutrient loads affects salt marsh food webs. Mara Freilich is working under the direction of Linda Amaral Zettler exanining the bloom dynamics of freshwater haptophytes in Lake George, North Dakota in order to understand the relationship between the ecology of haptophytes and the ability to use lipids they produce (alkenones) as a paleothermometer. John Ribbans is working in Rudolf Oldenbourg’s lab.
Jehane Samaha, Emma Dixon and Eli Ward identify plant species in suburban yards.
Norian Caporale-Berkowitz, another 2011 Beckman Scholar, has returned to David Mark-Welch’s lab to continue his research on genomic modifications in bdelloid rotifers caused by desiccation and how these animals might eliminate harmful mutations in the absence of sexual reproduction.
Jehane Samaha and Elisabeth Ward received UTRA Fellowships from Brown and Emma Dixon is a returning (2011) Beckman Scholar. Jehane, Elisabeth and Emma are working with Christopher Neill on a project entitled, ‘The Ecological Homogenization of Urban America’. They are sampling species diversity, vegetation structure and carbon levels in Boston suburban ecosystems.
Elizabeth Kripke, a joint RISDI/Brown student, has joined Roger Hanlon’s lab for the summer. Lizzie is developing visual, three-dimensional computer models of cephalopod chromatophore morphology and physiology.
Finally, Michael Menesses is in Sauri, Kenya working on the PIRE Project with Brown MBL PIRE graduate student, Maya Almaraz.
