NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship Program Internship
I have had the honor of receiving the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship for my last two years at UW. The Hollings Program is a national scholarship program for students in NOAA-related fields, such as oceanography! It includes a 10-week summer internship with NOAA, which I completed this summer. I moved across the country from Seattle, Washington to St. Petersburg, Florida to complete my internship at the Institute of Remote Sensing at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. I worked on a project investigating seasonal variations in the phytoplankton community in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. I learned many valuable field research, data analysis, and coding skills that I’m excited to bring forward into my future career!
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My research project specifically focused on seasonal variations in pigment-based phytoplankton functional types (PFTs), which are groups of phytoplankton distinguished by their diagnostic biomarker pigment ratios. These pigment ratios can be used in chemotaxonomic pigment analysis to estimate PFT abundances based on the concentrations of pigments in seawater samples. Since my internship was only ten weeks and I wanted to investigate seasonal patterns, I used a dataset of pigment concentrations measured using high-performance liquid chromatography from 2016-2021. I put the pigment concentrations through a program called CHEMTAX to estimate the abundances of PFTs including dinoflagellates, cryptophytes, and several different diatom and cyanobacteria PFTs. Although chemotaxonomic pigment analysis can only provide phytoplankton community composition down to the level of PFTs, it is faster and more cost-effective than counting phytoplankton using microscopy, and is also more effective in determining the abundances of smaller phytoplankton, such as cyanobacteria. I analyzed the data using R and learned a lot about statistics during my internship!
In addition to data analysis, I had the chance to go on two research cruises! The first was a three-day cruise for servicing buoys and the second was a week-long expedition in which I helped to collect samples of phytoplankton pigments, environmental DNA, and chromophoric dissolved organic matter. Despite some struggles with seasickness, it was great gaining experience in the field and getting to know others in oceanography during my time on the vessel.
Lastly, I am very appreciative of the mentorship and support as well as the connections I built with others in marine science during my internship. I got to work with groups such as the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) and the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA). I met so many wonderful people that I plan to stay in contact with and would love to work more with in the future. I also had the opportunity to fly back to Florida and present my research at the Southeast MBON meeting in Miami, which was a great experience.
Overall, I loved living in St. Petersburg: great people, delicious food, cool wildlife and plants, and a gorgeous location! I’ve grown and changed so much as both a person and a scientist during my internship, and I am immensely grateful for such a transformative experience.
Overall, I loved living in St. Petersburg: great people, delicious food, cool wildlife and plants, and a gorgeous location! I’ve grown and changed so much as both a person and a scientist during my internship, and I am immensely grateful for such a transformative experience.