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March 31, 2006
Highlights
- The Rutgers University's Coastal Ocean Observation
Lab (RU COOL) Project
has been chosen to receive the 2006 Cook/NJAES Team Award. Team
members, Josh Kohut, Scott Glenn, Janice McDonnell, Bob Chant,
and Oscar Schofield will be recognized at the Annual Cook College/NJAES
Awards Dinner on April 27, 2006.
- The Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Coastal and
Marine Specialty Group (COMA) voted to name their student paper
award in honor of Norb Psuty “in recognition of his many
contributions to the discipline, the specialty group, and to the
education of so many coastal geographers, the award will now be
known as the Psuty Student Paper Merit Award.” Norb has
been a member of the AAG for all of his professional career, his
degree is in Geography and he has been active in this discipline
for all of his professional career. Congratulations on receiving
this honor!
- Kudos to Dennis Kent! Dennis was named the European Geosciences
Union (EGU) Petrus Peregrinus Medallist 2006, "for his fundamental
contributions to our knowledge of the Earth's magnetic field in
the past and for his leadership in palaeomagnetism." http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/awards/medallists/_2006/petrus_peregrinus.htm
- Peter Rona and Karen Bemis participated in the NSF ORION Design
and Implementation Workshop 27-30 March in Salt Lake City. They
are working with their partners at the Applied Physics Lab-University
of Washington and at the University of Georgia to connect their
acoustic instrumentation to the NEPTUNE Cabled Observatory to
monitor hydrothermal flow in the Main Endeavour Field on the Juan
de Fuca Ridge.
- "Disease-resistant oysters from hatchery could be the future
of industry- Environmental experts see potential for large-scale
farms at the Shore," by Kirk Moore of the Asbury Park Press,
(click on 03/12/06
to read the article in its entirety).
Meetings Attended
- Alan Robock presented the following invited talks:
- University of Texas, Austin, March 2, 2006 (On "Comparing
Climatic Response to Low and High Latitude Volcanic Eruptions")
- University of Texas, Austin, March 3, 2006 (On "Using
Soil Moisture Observations to Study Climate Variations, to
Evaluate Climate Models, and as Ground Truth for Remote Sensing")
- Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Université
Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France, March 13, 2006 (On "Comparing
Climatic Response to Low and High Latitude Volcanic Eruptions")
- Liz Sikes was co-author on 3 presentations at the Ocean Sciences
meeting (Honolulu, Hawaii). She presented her science, gave an
outreach talk with John Wilkin, and Sarah Edwards the RIOS winning
student also presented her poster. The formal abstract titles
are as follows:
- 2006. Sikes, E. L., M. E. Uhle, and S. D. Nodder, Assessing
the Source and Degradation of Organic Matter in a Coastal
Marine Environment Using Compound Specific Carbon Isotopic
Analysis: Evidence from the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, EOS,
Transactions AGU, 87 Ocean Sci. Suppl., Abstract OS22B-06.
- 2006. Sikes, E.L. , J.L. Wilkin, and E. Simms, Salutations
from the Southern Ocean: A Scientist's Web Log Reached Further
than Expected EOS, Transactions AGU, 87 Ocean Sci. Suppl.,
Abstract OS13M-05
- 2006. Edwards, S.H., E. L. Sikes, T. P. Guilderson, The
Paleoventilation of the South Pacific EOS, Transactions AGU,
87 Ocean Sci. Suppl., Abstract OS26B-12 INVITED
- Presentations by John Reinfelder at the AGU-ASLO Ocean Sciences
Meeting, Honolulu, HI, February 2006:
- Talk: Reinfelder, J.R., D.D. Wright, and L. Smith, "Production,
Oxidation, and Volatilization of Dissolved Gaseous Mercury
in the Hudson River Buoyant Plume."
- Student Poster: Wright, D.D., D.J. Loeffler, and J.R. Reinfelder,
"The Distribution and Speciation of Trace Metals in the
Hudson River Plume."
- Talk co-author: Milligan, A.J., J. Moore and J.R. Reinfelder,
"The C4ÂCO2 Concentrating Mechanism of Diatoms."
- Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute, March 10, 2006:
Talk: J.R. Reinfelder, T. Cardona-Marek, J. Schaefer, and T. Barkay,
"Mercury speciation and transformations in Berry's Creek,
a highly mercury-contaminated estuary in the New Jersey Meadowlands."
- Ximing Guo, Gregory DeBrosse and Eric Powell attended the annual
meeting of the USDA Regional Committee on Molluscan Broodstock
Management held on March 24-25, 2006, in Monterey, CA. Ximing
Guo gave a station report for shellfish genetics research at Rutgers.
- Five people from Ximing Guo's lab, Yongping Wang, Haiyan Wang,
Lingling Wang, Jeong-Ho Lee and Ximing Guo, attended the 98th
Annual Meeting of the National Shellfisheries Association, March
26 - 30, 2006, Monterey, CA. They presented 8 papers on oyster/scallop
genetics, genomics and population genetics.
- Yongping Wang and Ximing Guo attended the 25th Milford Aquaculture
Seminar, February 27 - March 1, 2006, Milford, CT. They presented
a paper on "Superior Growth of Triploid Eastern Oyster Depends
on Culture Environment" (co-authors DeBrosse, Karney, Bagnall,
Blake, Ford and Bushek).
- Ximing Guo served on the NSF/SBIR panel on Food and Aquaculture
Biotechnology. The panel meeting was held on March 23, 2006, in
Washington, DC.
- Tony Broccoli served on an ad hoc tenure evaluation committee
for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
New Grants
- Lee Kerkhof was awarded $906,057 from the Department of Energy
for his project, "Active Microbes Responding to inputs from
the Orinoco River Plume." (11/15/05-11/14/07)
- Oscar Schofield received a grant from the Office of Naval Research
in the amount of $175,255 for his project, "Mapping in Situ
Apparent Optical Properties Using Coastal Slocum Webb Gliders."
(1/1/06-12/31/06)
- Lisa Totten was awarded $29,540 from the NJAES pre-tenure awards
program to re-construct a flux chamber for use in measuring the
air/water mass transfer coefficients of organic chemicals.
- Lisa Totten, along with Drs. Sikes, Fennell, Huang, White, Obropta,
Kerkhof, and Haggblom also received a $35,000 NJAES infrastructure
award to buy an accelerated solvent extraction system.
Publications
- 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. Applied
and Environmental Microbiology, accepted for publication.
- Wang, Y., X. Zhe 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.
Student News
- Patricia Ramey attended the Benthic Ecology meeting held in
Quebec City, March 8-12 and presented a poster titled “Life
history, habitat selection and dispersal of a dominant polychaete
Polygordius sp. nov.”
- Di Li attended the Benthic Ecology meeting held in Quebec City,
March 8-12 and presented a poster titled “Evaluating essential
shellfish habitat (EFH) of hard clams, Mercenaria Mercenaria,
during larval settlement and early recruitment.”
- Lisa Totten's first PhD student, Amy Rowe, has submitted her
dissertation to her committee and will defend her PhD on March
17th.
Let's Welcome
- Kuo-Fang Huang (Denner), a PhD candidate at the Department of
Earth Sciences, National Cheng-Kung University (Tainan, Taiwan).
“This is the 5th year of my PhD study, and I’ll be
spending one year conducting advanced research in Yair Rosenthal’s
Lab. I’m very interested in working on several topics in
the ocean (1) Development and calibration of paleo-proxies and
their applications for paleoclimate and paleoceanography; (2)
New technique for precise isotopic analyses using TIMS and ICP-MS;
(3) Biogeochemical behaviors of trace elements and isotopes in
the ocean and estuary; (4) Pore water and hydrothermal fluid chemistry;
(5) Chemical weathering process of the mountain river system;
and (6) U-series dating for carbonate materials. In my free time,
I enjoy watching and playing basketball and table tennis. I am
also a fan of baseball and tennis.” (Ext. 372, Room 114A)
- Sandy Bullard has recently joined Sybil Seitzinger's group as
Sybil's new assistant. "I am returning to work after 10 years
of being a stay-at-home Mom, I have two boys and a puppy, that
keeps me very busy. I enjoy gardening, hiking, the beach, sports
and volunteering at my children’s school." ( Ext. 346,
Room 205)
- Abigail Ajala is on board as a part-time admin with Yair Rosenthal
and Rob Sherrell. "During my spare time I like reading mystery/suspense
novels and going out with friends. I also enjoy traveling. I am
interested in learning different cultures; I believe you know
more about a person by learning something about their culture.
I have lived in three countries so far and my aim is to visit
other countries including visiting all 50 states in America (so
far I visited 4 states in America). (Ext. 280, Room 205)
Congratulations
-
Eric Simms, our Science Education Specialist
and regional coordinator for the annual Shore Bowl, has accepted
a new position conducting outreach and education for several
programs based at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. We
wish him the best!
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