Currents Fall 2012 Newsletter - Volume XXVII, Number 2

18 Scholarship Sponsor Gale Foundation Scholarship Recipient/Project Anastasios Stathakopoulous Stathakopoulous’ doctoral research involves geological/geotechnical core-drilling of ancient coral reefs in South East Florida. His dissertation, which is entitled “A multi- proxy determination of coral reef formation and environmental conditions during the holocene in South East Florida,” aims to understand how and when these reefs were formed; the environmental conditions and sea level in the recent past; and how this relates to modern times. Ultimately, he intends to identify if the information gleaned from the geological record of the recent past can aid in understanding effective management strategies for coral reefs of the present and future. Anastasios Stathakopoulous (right) with Bernhard Riegl, Ph.D., OC professor Alexandra Dempsey’s M.S. thesis project: “A global audit of reef morphology using Google Earth Pro” M.S. students Naoko Kurata and Kate Vella with Associate Professor Alexander Soloviev, Ph.D. Scholarship Sponsor Title V PPOHA Fellowship Scholarship Recipient/Project Allison Santos and Kayelyn Simmons Part of the $2.8 million grant to the Oceanographic Center through the federal Department of Education Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans (PPOHA) Program, its guidelines specify the development of a flexible, supportive, and effective academic and career pathway as students with bachelor’s degrees efficiently transition into graduate degrees. Scholarship Recipient/Project Alexandra Campbell M.S. Thesis Project: “Genetic sequence characterization of marine bacterial diversity from South Florida nearshore and offshore waters over space and time.” Campbell’s project will expand microbial characterizations that are currently ongoing at the AOML by adding a “next generation” deep DNA sequencing component to the water samples currently collected for FACE. This will increase the number of sequences and overall data volume over standard sequencing by a few orders of magnitude. Following DNA extraction, modern bioinformatics methods will be applied to analyze the DNA data, which are currently being applied in the laboratory. The overall goal is to compare microbial communities between different Broward County sites and between different seasons in one–two years. Scholarship Sponsor InCapital/John Radke Scholarship Recipient/Project Alexandra Dempsey Dempsey has worked on a number of different projects including the geostatistical comparison of modern and ancient carbonate reef systems, ecological, geological, and bathymetric mapping from satellites, and analysis of acoustic sub-seabed profiles, as well as sediment collection and analysis. Scholarship Sponsor Kevin Kohler Memorial Scholarship Research Fund Scholarship Recipient/Project Naoko Kurata and Kate Vella Naoko Kurata was awarded for her research project, “Biosurfactant-producing marine bacteria in the sea surface microlayer and their effect on synthetic aperture radar imaging of fine features on the sea surface.” Kate Vella was awarded for her research project, “Microbial effects on the production and transformation of surfactants within the microlayer and subsurface waters in application to remote sensing techniques.” Fellows Kayelyn Simmons (left) and Allison Santos (right), both in black shirts, with the 2012 Oceanographic Center Peer Mentors— assisting the mentors is part of their fellowship.