Published March 03, 2017 by Tom Porter

Bowdoin Students Present Research at Hawaii Ocean Conference

Three Bowdoin students have been in Hawaii this week presenting honors and independent study research at the ASLO Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.
(L. to r.) The Hawaii-bound Georgia Bolduc '17, Cammie Ogden-Fung '17, Luke Carberry '18, Collin Roesler
(L. to r.) The Hawaii-bound Georgia Bolduc '17, Cammie Ogden-Fung '17, Luke Carberry '18, Collin Roesler

Georgia Bolduc ’17, Cameron Ogden-Fung ’17 and Luke Carberry ’18 traveled with Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science Collin Roesler.

The students’ regional focus spans from Maine to Hawaii, with topics ranging from lake carbon to satellite detection of coastal waters to deep corals. Bolduc is presenting “Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes in Maine: An analysis of the primary sources of DOC,” a project that emerged from her summer research experience with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Ogden-Fung’s topic is “Abundance and distribution of benthic organisms in mesophotic coral ecosystems across the Hawaiian archipelago.” Ogden-Fung received a NOAA Hollings Fellowship and her summer research last year took her to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Luke Carberry will be presenting “Chlorophyll from space: Constructing a robust validation data set in tidally impacted waters.” He spent the summer working in Harpswell Sound with funding from Roesler’s collaborative NSF EPSCoR SEANET project.

Roesler is excited that these undergraduates have the opportunity to showcase their work at an international conference. “It is unusual to find undergraduate student research conducted at a level that places them on par with other presentations at this meeting.” While the students have assigned time slots to present their findings, each has also been engaged in conversations at their posters by interested scientists throughout the week. “I am so proud of the work they have done. They have been so poised and professional as they present their research to the oceanography community”, said Roesler. “They are representing Bowdoin well.”

Funding for the students to travel to the meeting was provided by NOAA, NSF and Bowdoin’s Grua-O'Connell Research Award program.