IMCS News || 23 December 2005

January 31, 2006

Highlights

On Tuesday, January 24, IMCS's own Scott Glenn testified before the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Scott shared his knowledge with the Subcommittee on compact high frequency radars and their attendant usage for over-the-horizon vessel tracking. Four members of Congress attended this field hearing, which was held at Rutgers' Camden campus. As a result of this oversight hearing, the Subcommittee Chairman Congressman Frank LoBiondo, intends to introduce legislation to establish a "Center of Excellence for Maritime Domain Awareness" which would be administered through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and which would find a welcoming home at Rutgers
University. This would be a competitive grant opportunity, because the DHS does not earmark, but Rutgers was lauded by the Coast Guard during the hearing as a logical home to the Center.
Peter Rona was elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Paul Falkowski and Richard Lutz received an Academic Excellence award to establish a new Center for Marine Biotechnology at Rutgers.
IMCS Staff Recognized for Service- At the 2005 annual meeting of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System and National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (NERRA), several members of the Jacques Cousteau Reserve were honored for their service to NERRA. Honorees included Mike Kennish for research contributions to the reserve system, Lillian Lee for service to the NERRA Executive Board, and Mike De Luca for his service as Chair of Legislative Affairs. An awards ceremony and luncheon was held to honor these individuals.
Paul Falkowski and Carrie Manfrino dined with HRH Prince Edward and 60 other guests at the Turf Club in London on 25 January to raise funds for the Central Caribbean Marine Institute on Little Cayman Island. Carrie, Paul and Charles Shepard are lead scientists at the Institute. Students, post-docs, and faculty interested in working at the CCMI should contact Paul.
Alan Robock has been appointed Associate Editor for Atmospheric Science for Reviews of Geophysics.
Alan Robock has been appointed to the Editorial Board of Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences Library, Springer publishing.

Meetings Attended

A symposium on the Evolution of Aquatic Photoautotrophs, hosted by Drs. Paul Falkowski (IMCS) and Andrew Knoll (Harvard), took place Jan. 11-13 at the Douglass College Center. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Agouron Foundation, this symposium was designed to examine our present state of knowledge of the evolution of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms in the ocean, as well as the influence that these organisms have exerted on the biological and geochemical history of Earth. A reception at the Geology Museum followed the talks on the 11th, affording the participants a chance to chat and mingle under the bones of a mastodon. Musical entertainment was provided by IMCS's own graduate students-- Jason Sylvan and Grant Law, and Jonathan Simon; symposium speaker Charley O'Kelly joined in for a guest turn on the trumpet.

Peter Rona gave an invited lecture on the exploration of inner space and its impact on outer space to the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton on January 10 at Princeton University.
Peter Rona, Dolf Seilacher et al. presented a poster, "Paleodictyon, a Living Fossil on the Deepsea Floor," at the Symposium on the Evolution of Aquatic Photoautotrophs, 11-13 January 2006 at Rutgers.
Ximing Guo attended the annual meeting of the USDA National Animal Genome Research Project (NRSP-8), held as part of the International Conference on Animal and Plant Genome XIV, January 14-18, 2006, San Diego, CA.
Sybil Seitzinger attended the Denitrification ASA-CSSA-ASSA Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah November 6-10, 2005. She presented "Denitrification across the terrestrial-freshwater-marine continuum."
As President-elect for ASLO, Sybil Seitzinger attended the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., December 3-5, 2005.
Sybil Seitzinger organized and ran an GEF LME Workshop at UNESCO/IOC, January 18-27, 2006. The purpose was to train researchers from around the world how to utilize Global NEWS modeling in their DIN research.
Liz Sikes attended the Fall AGU meeting in December and presented the following talk: 2005. Sikes, E. L., T. P. Guilderson and P.A. Shane, Paleoventilation of Deep Water Masses During the Last Glacial Maximum in the Southwest Pacific and Southern Ocean, EOS, Transactions AGU, 86 (52) Abstract PP51F-06.
Jim Ammerman served on the selection panel for DISCCRS (Dissertations Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research), which brings together recent graduates across the entire spectrum of fields relevant to climate change and impacts. The meeting was held in Portland, Oregon, December 15-16. Earlier in that week he visited collaborators at Oregon State University and presented a seminar.
Jim Ammerman served on a proposal review panel for NOAA NCCOS in Marathon, Florida, January 11-12. He also attend an ORION Ocean Observatories planning meeting in Washington on January 30.

New Grants

IMCS Awarded a grant to Integrate the NERRS into the IOOS and Emerging Regional Associations-
As a result of strategic planning efforts conducted through the NERRS since 2003, an initiative to advance the Reserve System as a key component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is now being implemented. Most recently, a $500 K grant was awarded to Mike De Luca and Chuck Nieder (Research Coordinator, Hudson River Reserve) by the NOAA Coastal Services Center to establish the NERRS as a timely provider of environmental information that supports integrated research, education, and stewardship applications in diverse coastal and estuarine ecosystems as a key component of the IOOS. A pilot effort is underway with 8 reserves in two regions (the Pacific Northwest and the Mid-Atlantic) where progress has already been demonstrated towards integrating System-wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) data into information products for resource managers. A third regional pilot in the northeast will operate with independent funding. Although the data being collected can address several of the IOOS thematic areas identified by Ocean.US, the NERRS proposes to focus on two themes for this project: Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings (i.e., storm characterization and impacts) and Coastal Ecosystem Health (i.e., habitat protection and restoration). Initial efforts focus on existing SWMP data streams (water depth and water quality) that can serve near-term users, especially flood forecasters, fish harvesters, and fishery managers.
Bridget Wade received two grants; $15,000 from The English Speaking Union "Oligocene sea surface temperatures" and The Sylvester Bradley Award from the Palaeontological Association "Investigation of pristine planktonic foraminifera from Puerto Rico: Taxonomic and Geochemical Analysis."
Yongping Wang and Lingling Wang of HSRL each received a travel award of $1000 to attend the International Conference on Plant and Animal Genome XIV, January 14-18, 2006, San Diego, CA. Yongping presented her work on "Development of EST-SSR markers in the eastern oyster (co-author Ximing Guo)," and Lingling presented her paper on "A preliminary genetic map for the bay scallop (co-authors Linsheng Song and Ximing Guo)."
Fred Grassle received a $45,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for his project "To Strengthen the Census of Marine Life Program in China." (11/1/05 - 3/31/07)

Publications

Wang, Y., Z. Xu and X. Guo. 2005. Chromosomal mapping of 5S ribosomal RNA genes in the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica Gmelin by fluorescence in situ hybridization. J. Shellfish Res., 24(4):959-964.
Xiao, J., S.E. Ford, H. Yang, G. Zhang, F. Zhang and X. Guo. 2005. Studies on mass summer mortality of cultured zhikong scallops (Chlamys farreri Jones et Preston) in China. Aquaculture, 250:602-615.
Quigg, A., J.R. Reinfelder, and N.S. Fisher (2006) Copper uptake kinetics in diverse marine phytoplankton. Limnol. Oceanogr. 51: 893-899.
Reilly, T.J., Walker, C., Baehr, A.L., Schrock, R.M. and J.R. Reinfelder (2005) Diatoms as indicators of surface-water influence on domestic wells at Cranberry Lake and Lake Lackawanna, Sussex County, New Jersey: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigative Report 2005-5263, 18 p.
Stenchikov, G., K. Hamilton, R.J. Stouffer, A. Robock, V. Ramaswamy, B. Santer, and H.-F. Graf, 2006: Arctic Oscillation response to volcanic eruptions in the IPCC AR4 climate models. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2005JD006286, in press.
Callaghan, A.V., L.M. Gieg, K.G. Kropp, J.M. Suflita & L.Y. Young. 2006. A comparison of alkane metabolism under sulfate-reducing conditions among two isolates and a bacterial consortium. Appl Environ Microbiol (in revision).

Let's Welcome

Matt Makou, " I recently graduated from the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program, and my research interests involve the application of molecular organic tools to paleoclimate research. I'm particularly interested in ENSO variability
during the Holocene. I like to spend most of my free time riding my road bike and following the Red Sox." Matt is a post doc with Liz Sikes. (Room 114F, ext. 233).
Dave Aragon, "I was born in New Jersey, and lived in Hunterdon County most of my life. I received an engineering degree from Rutgers SoE in '05. My interests include most things outdoors, hiking, backpacking, camping,
fishing as well as most things computers including gaming. Hopefully for the COOL group I can contribute a technical know-how as well as efficiency and reliability to the current systems." (Room 109A, ext. 531).
Mike Previdi, " I did both my undergraduate and graduate work here at Rutgers, earning a B.S. in Meteorology in May 2001 and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences (with an option in Atmospheric Science) in January 2006. My research has focused on aerosol-cloud interaction and large-scale atmospheric variability associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In my Ph.D. thesis work, I studied Arctic climate variability related to the NAO using a regional atmospheric model. Ongoing work is using a coupled physical-biological ocean model to examine the effects of atmospheric variability on the coastal ocean, with particular emphasis on the impacts on carbon cycling. This work is in collaboration with Drs. Katja Fennel and Dale Haidvogel in the Ocean Modeling Group here at IMCS." (Room 214A, ext. 253)
Bridget Wade is a new postdoctoral associate working with Yair Rosenthal. Her research interests focus on Paleogene climate change and the geochemistry of planktonic foraminifera and she is Chair of the Oligocene planktonic foraminiferal working group. Bridget earned her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, and joins IMCS after a year in Geological Sciences. (Room 114F, ext. 233).
Kris Reiss, "I spent the last year as a Systems Administrator for an e-commerce software company in Manhattan, and before that I was with a retail chain in a similar position. I have a BA from Montclair St. University and currently live in Jersey City. I am looking forward to the experience of working in an academic environment, and getting involved with some new technology. I have an insane dog." Kris has joined the IMCS IT group and and he sits in room 202. (Ext. 237, kreiss@marine.rutgers.edu).
Javier Zavala-Garay, "I recently joined the Ocean Modeling group at IMCS to work with topics related to Generalized Stability Theory using some recently developed numerical tools for the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS). I will also continue working with my previous line of expertise (thanks to a NOAA-OGP project), related ENSO prediction and predictability. I am from Mexico and got my PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Things at the top of my extensive list of hobbies are hiking, biking, swimming and outdoors in general." Javier is an Asst. Research Prof. working with John Wilkin. (Room 302 Old Blake, ext. 2-3433).

Congratulations

Liping Wei has started a new position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology this year. She would like to thank everybody at IMCS. Liping can be reached by phone at 973 596-5389.
After six and a half years at IMCS, Bob Rossi has moved to the Waksman Institute as Director of Business and Administration. Best wishes Bob!