Summer Intern Symposium

Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute hosted its 51st annual Summer Intern Symposium, where 17 student researchers presented their projects. The undergraduate and graduate students came from across the United States to work for 10 weeks in labs throughout Harbor Branch spanning disciplines including marine engineering and technology, aquaculture, ocean health, human health and community outreach.

For instance, Skye Flegg, a student from Florida Atlantic, worked in the Queen Conch Lab under the mentorship of Megan Davis, Ph.D., and Robinson Bazuto, Ph.D., on a project to optimize growing nutrient-rich microalgae to feed tiny queen conch veligers, or larvae. Madelyn DeBest, from the University of Maine, worked with the Fisheries Ecology and Conservation lab under the mentorship of Matt Ajemian, Ph.D., on a study to investigate if shell-crushing predators could be identified using only the sounds they emit during their "crunchy" feeding sessions. And Jennifer Sharr, from Indian River State College, evaluated sea sponge samples recently extracted from a deep-sea expedition off Puerto Rico for presence of marine natural products with antibiotic effects.

Other projects studied bioluminescence events (Andrew Fricano, University of Rhode Island), investigated a mysterious sea slug that recently re-emerged in Indian River Lagoon (Emory Tudor, Amherst College), validated ocean color data from NASA satellites (Kalu Okigwe, Clark University), and developed community education activities about underwater acoustics (Isabella Holden, Florida Atlantic).

These emerging scientists gained valuable, hands-on experience while also making significant contributions to marine science and engineering research.

The summer internship program is supported by the Link Foundation, the Gertrude E. Skully Charitable Foundation and Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Foundation.