Minorities in the Aquatic Sciences

As an undergraduate at Monmouth University (NJ), I majored in chemistry with hidden desires to expand my horizons into oceanography. This cry for diversity was answered in my junior year when I was accepted for a summer undergraduate research fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the field of paleomagnetism. The concept of comprehending past mechanism in earth systems through a proxy ignited my flame for paleo-like research. Determining past variability in different components of climate, environment, and physics of the earth can allow today’s scientists to extrapolate these modes of change to predict the future of earth. During my senior year, I became interested in large-scale changes in global climate, specifically the response of present and future climates to high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. I also learned of the possibility of reconstructing past variability using mollusks as an archive of various surface ocean properties.

Rutgers University, where I presently attend, had the framework for this endeavor. Currently, I am a 4th year PhD student in chemical oceanography at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. I am finishing a chapter in my thesis regarding the use Sr/Ca and the oxygen isotopic composition of gastropod shells to reconstruct seasonal and secular changes in tropical sea surface temperatures (SST) during the Paleogene, a period of transition from an ice free “greenhouse world” to today’s “ice-house world. My advisor, Yair Rosenthal, provides guidance in utilizing geochemical proxies for determining past climate variability on short and long time scales. I have created a foundation for my research focus in all aspects of oceanography and paleoclimatology. Over the past two years I have participated in three oceanographic research expeditions in the Norwegian Sea, Sargasso Sea, and New Zealand. From retrieving sediment cores in the deep sea to attending a summer school on paleoclimatology, I have been able to incorporate my chemistry background and fervor for climatology and oceanography into a research focus.

I have garnered an interdisciplinary view of science, useful laboratory methods, ability to work as a team and independently all of which I plan to utilize in my future endeavors. Eventually, I would like to acquire a faculty tenure track position at a oceanography institution. I hope to produce research beneficial to society, capable students who have an innate understanding of science, and equal representation in science of all factions in society.