charismaticmicrofauna

My first week back to school and my first week of grad school has been a little window to my future. I have the privilege this year of being a research assistant which means that I earn my measly stipend doing what I came to grad school to do: research. In addition to not having to be a teaching assistant, which would entail spending several hours a week teaching a class, or answering emails about classes to undergrads, and setting aside hours to assist students with trouble over their coursework, I am also unable to take a lecture course due to my approaching research cruise to the East Pacific. For me, the next four months are going to be research all day, every day. I’m living the dream.

I have a lot to catch up on before I ship out of Manzanilla, Mexico in November. Everyday, my advisor asks me a question pertaining to what I need to know when I am grilled by my graduate research committee, and if I don’t know the answer sufficiently which happens to be all the time, I am sent home with a new stack of previously published research papers that are of significant importance to my work. I am looking forward to November when all of this background research will pay off. We will spend 3 days in Mexico before we ship out for three and a half weeks to study the deep sea tube worms Riftia pachyptila and it’s associated microbial symbionts. Then we will port in Costa Rica before flying home with our specimens in high pressure maintenance aquariums for further investigation.

This cruise coming up will be on the Atlantis which is the only research vessel (RV) that is capable of handling the Alvin manned submersible that will be going to the ocean floor, preferably, with me in it. There should be plenty of time for me to take at least one trip. How lucky am I that I might get to travel to the bottom of the sea during my first semester of grad school?
My previous research cruise was on the RV Knorr in the Mid-Atlantic. It was the same RV that served as the base for the expedition that found the Titanic. The Jason is a remotely operated vehicle, an unmanned submersible that was operated by a pilot who sat on the boat from a high tech control cabin as seen on the charismaticmicrofauna cover page. It was used because the depth of the sites where we sampled was too deep for the Alvin.

My experience as a graduate student is going to be markedly different from my experience as an undergrad. To begin with, my commute to school isn’t two hours a day anymore. It’s only 10 minutes each way. Which gives me ample time to study and work. Also, if I’m needed, I can be at the lab at a moments notice. I feel very fortunate to be working with the scientist that I have as a mentor for the next few years of my life. She is smart, knowledgeable, a leader in her field, and has taken so much time to train me properly thus far. I was lucky to have been able to attend the Gordon Conference with my undergraduate advisor which is where I met my new mentor. I was the only undergrad presenting my research at that conference, which turned out to be a big deal! I am glad to have been on my A-game that day and impressed her with my poster presentation. Posters are also a big deal in science, in case you didn’t know.

I’m very excited about now and my future. I am ready to focus and work diligently to investigate the questions about the microorganism’s metabolic pathways that I am studying. Everything that I have worked so hard to accomplish these last five years is happening right now, and I’m ready.