Student Research

University of the Virgin Islands

Masters in Marine and Environmental Science Program (Aug. 2012 - Dec. 2014)

Master's Thesis (2013 - 2014)

Dr. Nemeth had a large passive acoustic telemetry dataset of Yellowfin Grouper from 2007 to 2010 at a fish spawning aggregation. Two chapters were written, the first examined passive acoustic telemetry technology and limitations, and the second analyzed the passive acoustic data to assess the effectiveness of the Grammanik Bank seasonal closure.

Measuring Yellowfin Grouper

Final Assessment of Yellowfin Grouper space/time around Fish Spawning Aggregation Site

Grammanik Bank during Yellowfin Grouper Fish Spawning Aggregation (Video credit: Dr. Richard Nemeth, video speed 2x)

Ciguatera Research (2013 - 2014)

Since 2008 Dr. Tyler Smith's Lab at the University of the Virgin Islands has been collecting a wide range of data relating to ciguatera. The area on the south shelf of St. Thomas, VI, has a high occurrence of ciguatoxic fish. My graduate student research assistant position from June 2013 to Aug 2014. During that time I led the monthly collection of algae, fish, coral health surveys, benthic videos, and gambierdiscus spp. from four sites south of St. Thomas.

Coral Health survey (Video credit: Leslie Henderson)

Gambierdiscus spp. collection

Gambierdiscus spp. fixed samples

Ciguatoxic fish samples

Nancy Foster Cruise (March 2014)

In March of 2014 I was able to assist in a benthic mapping cruise off the coast of St. Croix, USVI, aboard the Nancy Foster. I assisted with some general GIS mapping and identification of fish and coral species encountered by the ROV.

ROV awaiting deployment

ROV Control

Nancy Foster

Wisconsin Lutheran College

Bachelor of Science in History, Environmental Science, 2006 to 2011

Grenada Biological Monitoring (2010-2014)

Since 2008 Wisconsin Lutheran College has been collecting benthic habitat and fish count data from sites off of Grenada's Southwest coast. The primary purpose of this project is to assess how well the Marine Protected Area's Coral and Fish are compared to other sites. I was able to assist with the 2011 field sampling, but my largest contribution to this project was the data analysis.

Middle Bark River Dam Removal (2010-2013)

Wisconsin Lutheran College's Natural Resource Laboratory aided a low head dam removal project by collecting electro-fishing (stream shocking) surveys and macroinvertebrate samples from above and below the remnants of the dam. I completed an independent study for this project in 2010, and continued to lead summer sample collections for the next three years.

Fresh Water Plant Biomass (2010-2011)

Freshwater Plants were shipped to the Wisconsin Lutheran College Natural Resource Laboratory from BARR Engineering. We identified and sorted plants by species. Plants were then dried and a dry weight biomass was calculated.

Roman Roads of Anatolia (Modern day Turkey) (2010)

I participated in a preliminary project that was cataloging known Roman Road segments that St. Paul would have traveled on during his 1st Missionary Journey. We used satellite images from Google Earth to approximate where we needed to ground truth roads.

Lake Michigan Zooplankton Surveys (2010)

I assisted with the collection of zooplankton samples from the Oak Creek Generating Station on Lake Michigan from Apr. 2010 to Sept. 2010. We collected samples twice a week for two 24 hour cycles (two 12 hour shifts).

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