IMCS Calendar
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Undergraduate Students
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 Hi, my name is Drew Webster. I am currently a senior majoring in Marine Biology. I have loved marine sciences for as long as I can remember, and the strong programs here in New Brunswick drew my interest as a prospective student. My experience here is almost complete, and I am still amazed at the opportunities that I have been presented with. Many of the classes have been outstanding. Nothing beats learning from the best, and the professors at Rutgers have given me that opportunity. Many of the professors I've had have been extremely accommodating. They are always eager and willing to help with whatever they can. The Topics in Marine Science courses offered each semester allowed me to learn about, and assist with current research being done by the professors teaching the class. I am taking a Topics course taught by several professors preparing for an expedition to Antarctica. We learned about the history of Antarctica as a background for the research. Two of the three professors are now working in Antarctica, and I am working with a team of students to analyze the incoming data and report our findings to the researchers. I also took a Hydrothermal Vents course taught by Richard Lutz, the first biologist to ever visit the deep sea vents. His knowledge and enthusiasm for the topic made for one of the most interesting courses I have taken to date.
These learning experiences were extremely valuable to me, but nothing quite compares to the hands-on experience of working in a lab. There are many research opportunities available in a variety of different fields. Last semester, I started working in a geochemistry lab with Dr. Liz Sikes, cleaning and sorting several species of Foraminifera for analysis. I have learned a great deal in a relatively short period of time, not only about forams, but of the general research environment. I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would like to pursue a career in research, and I hope that this experience will be helpful in eventually attaining that goal.
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 I am currently a junior studying marine science at Rutgers. I decided to come to Rutgers because of their great undergraduate marine science program, which not many other marine science departments have. I think my favorite thing about the major is that you get hands on experience early in your undergraduate career. My sophomore year I took a class called Oceanographic Methods and Data Analysis, and during class we learned how to use real oceanographic instruments. We took a mini research cruise on the Raritan River, during which we collected data that we learned how to analyze for our final report. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun taking the class, and that is just one example of the great classes we get to take as marine science majors. I think another thing that sets our department apart is that all of the professors love to work with undergraduates. I always get the feeling that they enjoy teaching their classes and care about their students.
The past 2 years as a marine science major prepared me for opportunities outside Rutgers as well. I spent this past summer at the Duke University Marine Lab working on a research project where I investigated the diversity of Prochlorococcus, the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic organism in the open ocean, using molecular techniques. I hope to do more research during my remaining time as an undergraduate, and then continue on to graduate school to get my Ph.D.
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 At the age of seven, I received my first 10-gallon aquarium. My Dad always allowed me to explore my scientific interests and so, he presented me with the aquarium for my birthday. At the time, I felt above the world because I was the only kid with a reef aquarium. Soon after, my hobby grew to a passion and I decided when I graduated middle school that I wanted to work and care for reef aquaria and if possible make a career out of it. During high school, I was in charge of the aquaria the biology professor kept throughout the school classrooms as well as a greenhouse which contained several freshwater fish and a large marine fish tank. When the time to apply for college came, my interest in aquaria and marine biology reared its head and again I knew I wanted to apply to a college that had deep oceanographic roots.
That is when I decided to apply to Rutgers due to the vast number of scientific discoveries attributed to the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS). After I was accepted, I first started out as a Biotechnology and Marine Sciences double major but I soon decided my interest in Marine Sciences was what I wanted to pursue after I graduated so I dropped my Biotech major. The environment in the Marine Science building created the atmosphere that made me believe that if I had a specific interest and a planned mode of action to pursue the interest, anything is possible. As a result, I spoke to many professors and research assistants such as Judy Grassle, Peter Rona, Paul Falkowski, Patricia Ramey, and Frank Natale. All of these individuals were instrumental in developing my interest and extending my scope so that I can use my time to do something much deeper than working for a public aquarium. When I first entered Rutgers, my goal was to work with aquaria and just focus on keeping intensive systems and captive reef environments. However, after taking all these professors' opinions into consideration, they told me to consider aquaculture, microbial research with corals, and other fields that are still relevant to corals but also give me an opportunity to do something more significant.
Today, I work in the coral lab/greenhouse at IMCS and care for the reef aquaria there. I have also done research involving invertebrate behavior and coral growth, and plan to do so throughout my final two years. Overall, the Rutgers IMCS is a great place to study and work while allowing students to gain experience in their interests by doing hands-on work - whether research or internships.
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 I am Amelia Snow and I am currently a junior majoring in Marine Science with minors in Ecology and Evolution and Biological Sciences. When I first came to Rutgers, I was actually a math major in the School of Arts and Sciences. Spring of my freshman year I took Intro to Oceanography with Dr. Bidle and fell in love with the idea of being a marine science major. I transferred to the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and switched majors. The fall of my sophomore year I got involved with the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (COOL) with Scott Glenn, Oscar Schofield, and Josh Kohut and have now been working there for the past three semesters, doing research with a type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called gliders. I have worked on various research projects including the RU27 Transatlantic Crossing Mission. This past summer I worked in the COOL room as part of the Research Internship in Ocean Science (RIOS) program and as an intern I piloted and analyzed data for the Cook Mission.
In the two years I have been a marine science major, I have had so many opportunities that most undergraduates never get the chance to have. I have been able to work with education outreach by taking the Communicating Ocean Science to Informal Audiences course, gone out on a boat to learn to use oceanographic instruments in the Oceanographic Methods and Data Analysis course, learned to build, ballast, deploy and recover a glider, and also been able to take my research and present it at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. for World Ocean Day. The opportunities both in and outside the classroom continue to prepare me for future study as I wish to pursue a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography. I would like to do research with coral reef ecosystems and climate change, monitoring the oceans using gliders and other autonomous underwater vehicles.
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 Hello, my name is Amanda Jones, and I am a marine chemistry major from Houston, Texas. Currently, I am a junior at Rutgers and working on my second semester of research with Dr. Paul Falkowski and Dr. Linda Godfrey. My work with them has looked at sediment cores from the Cretaceous and Miocene to determine isotope concentrations and what that can tell us. I have also studied at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute’s Little Cayman Research Center, where we studied the many types of coral and fish that are endangered in the area.
After I graduate, I plan on going to graduate school, and hopefully, one day I will be a professor at a research institution.
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