{"id":5144,"date":"2023-05-01T15:45:23","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T22:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=5144"},"modified":"2023-05-01T15:45:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T22:45:23","slug":"navigating-the-research-rollercoaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2023\/05\/01\/navigating-the-research-rollercoaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating the Research Rollercoaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Amanda Rose Kent, College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, OSU, GEMM Lab\/Krill Seeker undergraduate intern<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you asked me five years ago where I\u2019d thought I\u2019d be today, the answer I would give would not reflect where I am now. Back then, I was a customer service representative for a hazardous waste company, and I believed that going to university and participating in research was a straightforward experience. I learned soon after I left that career and began my journey at OSU in 2020 that I wasn\u2019t even remotely aware of the process. I knew that as part of my oceanography degree I would need to become involved in some form of research, but I had no idea where to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started looking through the Oregon State website and I eventually found an outdated flier from 2018 that advertised a lab that studied plankton in Antarctica, and that was when I first reached out to Dr. Kim Bernard. My journey took off from there. As an undergraduate researcher in the URSA Engage program working with Kim and one of her graduate students, Rachel, I conducted a literature review on the ecosystem services provided by two species of krill off the coast of Oregon, including their value to baleen whales. After learning all I could from the literature about krill and how important they were to the ocean, I knew that there was so much more to learn and that this was the topic I wanted to continue to pursue. After I completed the URSA program, I remained a member of Kim\u2019s zooplankton ecology lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While continuing to work with Rachel, I was given the opportunity to join the GEMM Lab\u2019s Project HALO<\/a> for a daylong cruise conducting a whale survey along the Newport Hydrographic Line. I was initially brought on to learn how to use the echosounder to collect krill data but unfortunately, the device had technical difficulties and Rachel and I were no longer needed. We decided to go on the cruise anyway, and I was able to instead learn how to survey for marine mammals (it\u2019s not as easy as it may seem, but still very fun!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1.<\/strong> Enjoying the point of view from the crow\u2019s nest on the R\/V Pacific Storm<\/em>, but also very cold.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon, another opportunity arose to apply for a brand-new program called ARC-Learn<\/a>. This two-year research program focuses on studying the Arctic using publicly available data, and with the support of my mentors, I applied and was accepted. Initially I found that there were no mentors within the program that studied krill, so I found myself becoming immersed in a new topic: harmful algal blooms (HABs). Determined to incorporate krill into this research, I started looking through the literature trying to develop my hypothesis that HABs affected zooplankton in some way. There was evidence to potentially support my hypothesis, but I ended up encountering numerous data gaps in the region I was studying. After months of roadblocks, I eventually started feeling defeated and regretted applying for the program. Rachel was quick to remind me that all experiences are valuable experiences, and that I was still gaining new skills I could use in graduate school or my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As my undergraduate degree progressed, I continued supporting Rachel in her graduate research, spending some time during the summer processing krill samples by sorting, sexing, and drying them to crush them into pellets. Our goal was to process them in an instrument called a bomb calorimeter, which is used to quantify the caloric content of prey species and help us better understand the energy flux required for animals higher up the food chain (like whales) and the amount they need to eat. I was only able to do this for a few weeks before heading out on the experience of a lifetime, spending three weeks on a ship traveling around the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas with one of my ARC-Learn mentors. It was a great opportunity for me to see the toxic phytoplankton (which can form HABs) I had been studying and learn about methods of sample collection and processing. If I could go back and do it again, I\u2019d go in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 2.<\/strong> Pulling out all of the animal biomass out of the Arctic sediment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the beginning of my bachelor\u2019s degree, I had expected to just work with Kim and conduct research within her lab. Instead, I have had opportunities I would never have expected five years ago. I have learned a vast amount from my graduate mentor, Rachel, which has helped influence my trajectory in my degree. I have had the privilege to not only meet giants in the field I\u2019m interested in, but also work with them and learn from them, and to spend three weeks in the Arctic Ocean.  The experiences I have had throughout this roller-coaster helped me develop a project idea with new mentors that I eventually hope to pursue in my master\u2019s degree. I wasn\u2019t prepared for the number of adjustments I would make to find new experiences and start new projects, but all the experiences I had were necessary to learn about what I was interested in and what I wanted to pursue. Looking back on it all today, I have zero regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3<\/strong>. A picture of the Norseman II, the ship I was on in the Arctic, taken by the Japanese ship JAMSTEC on a short rendezvous between the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

By Amanda Rose Kent, College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, OSU, GEMM Lab\/Krill Seeker undergraduate intern If you asked me five years ago where I\u2019d thought I\u2019d be today, the answer I would give would not reflect where I am now. Back then, I was a customer service representative for a hazardous waste company, … Continue reading Navigating the Research Rollercoaster<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[188686,1310535],"tags":[195384,677522,712836,148762,1237973,1237844,529],"class_list":["post-5144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-projects","category-oregon-whale-distribution","tag-field-work","tag-foraging-ecology","tag-krill","tag-oregon-coast","tag-predator-prey-dynamics","tag-prey","tag-whales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5148,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions\/5148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}