How Grad Student Lu Uses Statistics to Monitor Reef Fish Populations
Authorities closed large portions of the Gulf of Mexico following Deepwater Horizon to minimize oil contamination of fish and seafood products.
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The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes outstanding graduate students and the vital research they contribute to improve understanding about the damage, response, and recovery following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Scholars Program honors and builds community for these next generation of ocean science professionals.
These students serve as essential team members for much of the research underway and bring creativity, curiosity, and energy to the GoMRI scientific program. They represent the successful manifestation of the second GoMRI Legacy Goals, building scientific and intellectual capacity for response and mitigation strategies for future oil spill events.
Candidates for this program must be graduate students who have participated in a GoMRI-funded project for at least one year, whose work is primarily funded by GoMRI, and who are working on a dissertation or thesis based on GoMRI-funded science. On a semi-annual basis, the lead Principal Investigators of GoMRI-funded projects nominate students who meet these criteria.
Following confirmation, each scholar will receive a letter of congratulations declaring the title GoMRI Scholar along with a certificate from Dr. Rita Colwell, GoMRI Research Board Chair. GoMRI will collect information about these scholars and their careers and accomplishments for longitudinal studies and program impacts.
Below are GoMRI Scholars Highlight Stories that have been featured on the web site. For a complete list of scholars, click on the ‘People’ tab for any funded projects to view the list of GoMRI Scholars with affiliation for that project.
Grad Student Pruzinsky Uses Morphological Patterns to ID Young Tuna for Population Assessments
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill overlapped with the spawning activities of many ecologically and economically important tuna species.
Grad Student Aker Counts on Insects to Assess Marsh Health
Estuarine marshes in coastal Louisiana face numerous threats such as sea-level rise, salt water intrusion, and contamination threats such as oil spills that can lead to marsh loss and changing habitats.
How Grad Student Niles Gets to Know Crude Oil at a Molecular Level
When an oil slick is exposed to sunlight, photo-oxidation processes break the oil down and incorporate oxygen into the petroleum molecules.
Grad Student Grossi Uses Artificial Intelligence to Map Ocean Flows
Our knowledge about ocean transport comes primarily from ocean circulation models that use field observations and theoretical motion equations to simulate ocean dynamics.
Grad Student Jasperse Examines Oil Spill Effects on Marsh Fish and Dolphins
Following Deepwater Horizon, researchers have been conducting multi-year studies on the health of Gulf of Mexico marine life.
Grad Student Bociu Digs into How Long Buried Oil Persists in Sandy Beaches
Petroleum hydrocarbons buried in sandy beaches are protected from tides and UV light and, thus, may persist longer in the environment than oil on the beach surface.
Grad Student Hackbusch Pressures Marine Microbes for Information
The Deepwater Horizon incident occurred at 1500 m depth, where the pressure is approximately 15 MPa, but little is known about how such high pressure affects the metabolic processes involved with oil biodegradation for bacteria that live there.
Grad Student Lodise Deconstructs Drifter Velocities to Understand How Wind Influences Currents
Grad Student Lodise Deconstructs Drifter Velocities to Understand How Wind Influences Currents – FEBRUARY 20, 2019 Many ocean forecast models treat the upper 1 meter of the water column, which plays a central role in ocean material transport, as a single layer. However, recent research shows that currents act differently at various depths within this…
Grad Student Pearson Resolves Statistical Conflict in Submesoscale Ocean Processes
Ocean models that utilize surface drifter data can provide oil spill responders with important information about the floating oil’s direction and speed as it moves along the ocean surface.