USF CMS REU
Bio Pages REU
Summer 2019 REU projects will be offered by the College of Marine Science in the following
areas
Biological Oceanography
Larry Dishaw, Ph.D., Associate Professor, USF Health
The main focus of the Dishaw lab is the evolution of immune defense mechanisms —
specifically across the gut epithelium. Our lab is trying to decipher how a host,
in general, maintains complex communities of microbes in their guts and we are doing
this with the model organism, Ciona intestinalis. What are the mechanisms involved
in bacterial colonization of host epithelial surfaces?
Professor Dishaw’s research group will mentor REU students in one of several ongoing
coastal erosion control technologies evaluation projects. The first project investigates
the performance characterization of a novel marsh shoreline protection technology.
The objective is to determine the energy characteristics in terms of reflection, transmission,
and loss coefficients and to develop guidelines for field installation. The second
project is to optimize the Pile Supported Wave Screen System (PSWSS) design via experimental
and computational simulation studies. This investigation includes construction of
PSWSS modules, laboratory testing, development of computational models, prediction
of the performance of the PSWSS system, and design optimization. Undergraduate students
will collaborate closely with faculty, graduate students, attend group meetings, collect
experimental and simulation data, complete technical analysis, and dissemination of
results.
Majors: Biology, Microbiology, Marine Science
View Professor Larry Dishaw’s website
Chemical Oceanography
Tim Conway, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, College of Marine Science & School of Geosciences
Research in Tim Conway’s group aims to understand the geochemistry of trace metals
in the marine and earth system, and the role they play as micronutrients and/or toxins
in marine biogeochemical cycles, with effects on the global carbon cycle. Researchers
working with Dr. Conway employ isotopic techniques including measurement of trace
metal (Fe, Zn, Ni, Cd, Cu) isotope ratios by multi-collector HR-ICPMS in a range of
natural materials. We work closely with national and international collaborators as
part of the International GEOTRACES program, working on seawater and other samples
collected from all over the world.
Several REU projects are available in the Conway group in oceanic metal cycling. The
first involves analyzing samples for dissolved iron isotopes from a 6 month water-column
time series collected from the Saanich Inlet in British Columbia. The objective is
to learn about how metals cycle across high-low oxygen transitions in the ocean, and
how we can use this knowledge to better understand metal cycling during climate events
in the geological past and future. The second project will involve analyzing seawater
samples collected during a Dutch cruise from Scotland-Chile for dissolved zinc and
iron isotopes. We will use this data to better understand how iron and zinc are added
to the oceans and how they cycle through them. Both projects will involve chemical
sampling and processing, and analysis of the samples using mass spectrometers in the
new USF facility. Undergraduate students will work closely with graduate students,
postdocs and faculty to learn techniques, attend group meetings, collect observational
data, data analysis and dissemination of results.
Majors: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Geosciences
View Professor’s Tim Conway’s website
Geological Oceanography
Brad Rosenheim, Ph.D., Associate Professor, College of Marine Science
Research in Brad Rosenheim’s group aims to constrain changes in climate and carbon
cycling in the recent geologic past, from the Anthropocene through last glacial maximum.
Researchers working with Dr. Rosenheim employ isotopic techniques including conventional
stable isotope measurements (H, C, N, O), non-conventional stable isotope measurements
(“clumped” isotopes in CO2 derived from carbonate minerals), and radioisotopic techniques
including uranium system dating and radiocarbon analysis. Dr. Rosenheim’s group obtains
geologic and oceanographic data from sediment, coral and sclerosponge skeletons, ice,
and the open ocean water column. Members of Dr. Rosenheim’s research group have come
from diverse backgrounds including chemistry, environmental science, geology, and
marine science.
REU students could select from two projects based on analyzing sediments from Antarctica
for timing of deposition in order to better interpret Antarctic glacial history as
the globe warmed naturally 10,000 y ago. One NSF-funded project seeks to compile
a continental-wide record of deglaciation by radiocarbon dating specific marine sediment
types that are observed around Antarctica’s entire continental shelf. Two different
type of dating are being employed in this project to compare the best approach for
dating while testing the hypothesis that Antarctic ice shelves retreated simultaneously
continent-wide. Another project, also funded by the NSF, would involve analysis of
subglacial lake sediments for stable isotope composition, radiocarbon age, and other
geochemical parameters. These sediments were recently collected as part of the Subglacial
Antarctic Lakes Scientific Project (SALSA) and they are being used to test the hypothesis
that a dark, extreme ecosystem is driven by energy stored for millions of years in
photosynthetically-fixed carbon molecules that have been eroded and transported by
the overlying glaciers. Ultimately, the results will provide a template for energetics
of extremophile communities as well as an improved understanding of the glacial history
of Antarctica.
Majors: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Geosciences
View Professor Brad E. Rosenheim’s website
Amelia Shevenell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, College of Marine Science
Dr. Shevenell’s research focuses on generating high-resolution paleontologic, sedimentologic,
and geochemical records from marine sediments to address questions related to Earth’s
Cenozoic climate evolution. Her current research interests are focused in the Southern
Ocean and divided into two focus areas: 1) Paleocene to Pliocene Antarctic ice sheet
development from ice proximal records and 2) Antarctic Holocene climate variability.
Paleoclimate/paleoceanographic research undertaken by the Shevenell Lab is relevant
to IPCC concerns that ongoing climate changes are accelerating polar ice cap melting
and global sea level rise. Shevenell and her students develop, calibrate, and employ
a wide variety of micropaleontologic, sedimentologic inorganic and organic geochemical
techniques to reconstruct past changes in ocean temperature, circulation, productivity,
continental ice volume, and carbon cycling on decadal to orbital timescales. This
multi-proxy approach enables the group to address the broadest possible range of climate
and biogeochemical problems.
Shevenell’s research group will mentor REU students in one of three ongoing projects
that seek to understand how Antarctica’s ice sheets developed over the last 20 million
years. The first potential project investigates the sedimentology of Holocene marine
sediments from the continental shelf near the Totten Glacier, East Antarctica, a region
extremely sensitive to ongoing climate change. Observations reveal that warm waters
from the Southern Ocean are moving onto the continental shelf and melting Totten Glacier,
causing it to retreat. The objective is to use sediment grain size to understand how
the ocean currents that bring warm waters onto the continental shelf fluctuated over
the last 15,000 years, since the last Ice Age.
The second project investigates the advance and retreat of Antarctica’s ice sheets
during the Miocene Climate Optimum and the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, ~17-14
million years ago. The objective is to use geochemical proxies from recently drilled
sediments, recovered by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition
374 to the Ross Sea, Antarctica (2018), to understand the role of warm ocean waters
on ice sheet size.
The third project, also focused on IODP Expedition 374 sediments, will investigate
the Pliocene evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet in the Ross Sea. The objective is
to use geochemical proxies from foraminifera preserved in sediments from the continental
shelf edge to understand ice response to ocean temperature and past current strength
during a time when it is thought that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet evolved. Undergraduate
students will collaborate closely with faculty and graduate students, attend group
meetings, collect sedimentologic and micropaleontologic data, assist in preparing
samples for geochemical analyses, and dissemination of results. If selected, the REU
student will generate a publishable data set, which will result in co-authorship of
a scientific publication.
Majors: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Geosciences
View Professor Amelia Shevenell ’s website
Physical Oceanography
Xinfeng Liang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Delaware
Dr. Liang is interested in using a combination of observations, numerical models
and theory to understand how the ocean works and how the ocean is affected by and
responds to the changing climate. In particular, Dr. Liang is interested in how the
heat, salt, carbon and other biogeochemical tracers are transported in the global
ocean. Another of Dr. Liang’s current research interests is the dynamic processes
that can supply energy to ocean mixing, and these processes mainly include internal
tides, near-inertial oscillations and mesoscale eddies. Dr. Liang has extensive seagoing
experience, primarily in acquiring and processing data from Lowered/Vessel-mounted
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). Furthermore, he is familiar with the system
of ocean state estimation (e.g. ECCO), which is powerful and has huge potential in
addressing fundamental oceanographic questions.
The Liang group has two REU projects that focus on global oceanic changes, particularly
the ocean heat content changes. The first project is to evaluate a large set of the
existing Ocean Reanalysis Products and determine if they are suitable for examining
climate-scale changes in global and regional ocean heat content. This evaluation is
based on examining the changes of the thermal-steric and halo-steric contributions
to the global steric height over time. The second project is to analyze a state-of-the-art
ocean state estimate to better under the physical processes that control the observed
ocean heat content change and variability. By conducting these projects, the REU students
will become familiar with one of the fundamental climate questions that how the ocean
has been changing, as well as how this critical question is addressed. Both projects
require intensive programming and data processing. The REU students will work closely
with Dr. Liang and graduate students in conducting analysis and disseminating results.
Majors: Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Physics