The Spectacular Humpback Whales of Bahia De Banderas

Several species of humpback whales coalesce off the coast of Mexico to breed every Winter. Near Puerto Vallarta, in Bahia de Banderas (Banderas Bay), whale watching tours are abundant and the primary mode of transportation in this area is by water taxi. Water traffic is busy and this causes a unique risk for humpback whales in this region, particularly the Central American humpback which is endangered and the Mexican humpback which is threatened. These whales are at risk of boat strikes or entanglements in fishing nets, which could potentially be a factor in their low population growth rates. This is the central issue at the center of Charlene Perez Santos’ research. Charlene is a first year Masters student at OSU, working within the Marine Mammal Institute. Her work focuses on tracking humpback whale movement via satellite tags and comparing them with sea vessel routes in Bahia de Banderas in relation to habitat use and exposure to human impacts. 

Charlene has had a passion to work with marine mammals since day one. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she also attended the University of Puerto Rico. While completing her bachelor’s degree in marine biology and  wildlife management, she sought out any opportunity she could to engage in research. Despite her passion for marine mammal research, she got involved in research experiences involving a variety of sea-adjacent animals and non-adjacent animals (including anoles) simply to gain as much experience as possible. Charlene was also the first Puerto Rican to receive the coveted NOAA IN FISH internship, which led to her establishing connections at OSU and eventually starting in the grad program here. 

Tune in Sunday, March 3rd to listen to Charlene’s interview live, or catch it online and learn all about humpback whales, navigating the science community as a Latina woman, and chasing your dreams.

A surprise trip to the coldest continent on Earth!

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had a very impromptu guest join us for our show on February 18th. Rachel Kaplan is a 4th year PhD student in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, who researchers whales and krill around the world to better understand predator-prey dynamics. Part of her PhD research involves going to Antarctica so we sat down with Rachel to chat about what it’s like conducting field work on the coldest continent on Earth!

You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!

Plankton: The smallest of organisms require the largest of boats

Did you know that jellyfish are plankton? That’s right, they’re not just abstruse microscopic organisms (although many of them are). For example, did you know that the size difference between plankton members is on an order of magnitude similar to the size of a human compared to the size of Earth? These are just a few of the fun plankton facts our upcoming guest has in store for us.

Elena Conser is a third year PhD student in the Plankton Ecology Lab. She really, really, loves plankton – marine organisms that are unable to swim against the current and are thus, at the whim and mercy of their environment (of which Elena attributes a sort of philosophical solace in). More specifically, she looks at zooplankton, animals that live in the plankton. These organisms form the basis of marine food webs, and Elena’s research aims to better understand planktonic communities and their food webs. She does this off the coast of Oregon, in an oceanographic region called the ‘Northern Californian Current’. This area is extremely productive for plankton growth and supports several economically important fisheries. It is also characterized by upwelling and periods of low oxygen, prompting Elena to investigate the structure of zooplankton communities here and how they may shift in response to environmental change.

To study plankton, Elena employs cutting-edge technology off large research vessels. She uses an imaging system known as ‘ISIIS’ (In-Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System) to view plankton in their natural environment, something that has not previously been possible in her field. The data collected with this system is processed using deep learning and computer vision to capture and identify plankton. Through this, Elena is also able to attain information on what plankton are where, how big they are, and how many there are. Elena couples her imagery data from ISIIS with biological samples of ichthyoplankton (larval fish), collected at different depths using nets. Using the ear bones (known as ‘otoliths’) from these physical samples, she can age larval fish much like how trees can be dated through their rings. She does this on English sole, a common flatfish occurring in the Northern California Current, to better understand the development from larval to juvenile stage.

Elena always knew of the importance of the ocean, which led her to studying marine science, biology, and applied math at the University of Miami in Florida. Here she worked with a larval fish scientist and became curious about the importance of plankton communities. This curiosity led her back to her roots in Oregon to pursue plankton research with developing technology. Her research is indeed at the intersection of oceanography, ecology, and computer science. She is excited to continue tackling questions that have never been able to be answered until now. To hear more on the importance of plankton and the interesting questions Elena is asking, tune in to KBVR 88.7 FM this Sunday, February 25th, or shortly thereafter where you get your podcasts!

Overturning myths about poverty through storytelling

“The individual who grows up in this culture has a strong feeling of fatalism, helplessness, dependence and inferiority” says Oscar Lewis, expounding upon his theory of the “Culture of Poverty” in a 1966 essay. According to Lewis, people who grow up in poverty take on a particular mindset of hopelessness that pervades every aspect of their lives. Elliot Laurence (he/they), our next guest, largely sees the “Culture of Poverty” as a myth and seeks to tell stories that express a broader view of being poor in America. Elliot is a first year Master of Fine Arts student in creative writing and fiction, who draws on his own experience of growing up in poverty and continued financial precarity as a source of inspiration for writing.

Elliot says he is most inspired by people who “make it work”, such as single parents managing to make rent from paycheck to paycheck and overworked social services providers. Harmful stereotypes of poor people often suggest that they are lazy and content to live off government assistance. But as Elliot points out, the tangle of paperwork and compliance that the American welfare state imposes on the poor is anything but a cushy lifestyle. So too are the ways that poor families must make ends meet.   One of Elliot’s short stories centers around a young child from a poor family who collects aluminum cans and bottles to exchange at the recycling center for meager sums of money. They want to depict everyday moments like this to push back against the common representation of poverty as something to gawk at, as exemplified in media like “The Florida Project” and “Shameless”. As he sees it, poverty fiction could be any genre, including sci-fi or fantasy, with background themes of material insecurity setting the scene.

Elliot’s personal story is interwoven deeply in his approach to writing. Born to a single mother in St. Louis, Missouri as the second of five children, he grew up playing an older sibling role. Elliot joined the Air Force at the age of 17, following the well-worn pipeline from poor neighborhoods to the military. Elliot is transgender, and years of trans activism in the hostile environment of Missouri later attracted him to the more accepting Pacific Northwest. He continues to be a guardian for his teenage sister, all while balancing the MFA curriculum, a teaching assistant position, and jobs as a daycare worker and Doordasher.

To hear excerpts from his writing and about how his identity as a mixed-race, transgender veteran has informed his fiction, tune in this Sunday, February 11th at 7PM on KBVR 88.7 FM or shortly thereafter wherever you get your podcasts!

Artificial, Intelligent–Safe?

Jose Aguilar is not here to help robots take over the world. In fact, the first year PhD student studying artificial intelligence says he’s actually working on the opposite–to ensure that AI systems are safe, and raise alarm when they’re not. 

Aguilar’s research focuses on the theoretical and applied aspects of safe AI. In the theoretical realm, he tries to ensure probabilistically that a model is going to be safe. When that algorithm or model is used in a situation–like autonomous vehicles, for example–his work moves over to the application side. 

And we really need safe AI! Listen to Selene and Jenna’s conversation with Jose to learn more about safe artificial intelligence and how Jose’s background of growing up in Mexico and moving to Oklahoma brought him to OSU. 

Sim like a Fish

Our next guest is Lauren Diaz, a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Fisheries , Wildlife and Conservation Sciences. Lauren is advised by Prof. Jim Peterson and focuses on the population dynamics of freshwater organisms.

Lauren studies rainbow trout, a widespread salmonid with important ties to recreational fishing and a complex life trajectory. The salmonid family of fish includes large species like Chinook salmon that are ecologically important food sources for both marine and terrestrial species including humans. Trout eggs hatch in freshwater but some juveniles undergo significant physiological changes and spend a large portion of their lifespan in the ocean before returning to the rivers to spawn. This ‘anadromous’ form of rainbow trout is called steelhead.

Lauren uses the Stanislaus River in California’s Central valley as a model system for understanding the impact of dams on the life histories of trout. The prominence of agriculture in the Central Valley has left its watersheds full of dams, irrigation systems and other human diversions. Monitoring fish populations throughout this complex network can be challenging due to a lack of standardization in monitoring systems. In response to this uncertainty, Lauren turns to computer simulations to shed light on the population dynamics of rainbow trout. Specifically, her simulations model the decision-making of individual fish in response to environmental stimuli. Lauren tweaks assumptions of the model such as the typical responses of trout to water depth, prey density, other fish, and tree coverage. In this way, population-level patterns emerge from a set of interpretable individual-level rules. Of particular interest to Lauren is the rate at which fish remain in the stream rather than becoming steelhead. Some preliminary evidence suggests that reduced seasonal fluctuations of water levels due to climate change could be suppressing the relative share of steelhead. 

Lauren grew up in Miami, Florida, a place where encounters with tropical wildlife are part of everyday life. She was fascinated by reptiles and amphibians and became known as the “animal person” within her family and eventually studied herpetology during her undergraduate career at the University of Florida and a master’s degree at Clemson. An interest in hellbender salamanders, which live alongside rainbow trout in cool freshwater streams, led her to pursue the PhD at Oregon State. To hear more about her journey and research, tune in to KBVR 88.7 FM on Sunday, January 28th or shortly thereafter wherever you get your podcasts!

Exploding Cheeses and Microbes at Work

For those of us who consume dairy products, we often don’t give much thought to the trials and tribulations that had to be faced to get that product on the grocery shelves. It’s probably a fair assumption to say that most of us have never considered that cheese could explode, but that is the center of Madeleine Enriquez’s graduate research. 

Madeleine (Maddie) is a master’s student in the laboratory of Joy Waite-Cusic, and she investigates dairy microbiology and spoilage, particularly mitigating “gas defects” in cheese. In semi-hard to hard cheeses certain microorganisms can cause build-up of gasses called “gas defects” which can eventually lead to blow-outs of the cheese in its packaging, or significant structural defects within the cheese (think Swiss cheese holes where they’re not supposed to be). Maddie works on practical and easy ways to mitigate these gas defects for small dairy farmers. Some of the variables include aging temperature, bioprotective cultures, or combinations of both. 

Maddie’s interest in this particular area of food science originally stemmed from her grandfather, who was a dairy farmer. She went to the University of Connecticut for her bachelor’s degree in animal science. While there she participated in undergraduate research on dairy farms, particularly focusing on dairy microbiology later in her degree. This eventually led to her coming to Oregon State to further her education in dairy food science. 


If you want to hear more about exploding cheese, making gouda on a weekly basis, and strapping wheels of cheese in for a CT scan, tune in for this episode of ID airing live on Jan 21, 2024.

Writing for Discovery

Natalie Van Gelder wants to teach writing, but not necessarily to people who want to write. 

The first-year MFA student in creative nonfiction recognizes writing as a tool for discovery–particularly as an exploration of self-discovery, and especially when it comes to better understanding neurodivergence.

Natalie’s writing contributes to the work of medical humanities and narrative medicine, both emerging fields that explore the humanities as tools for increasing empathy in medicine. Narrative medicine likewise recognizes the all-too-common disconnect between practitioners and their clients, and aims to incorporate storytelling into the practitioner-patient relationship. That might look like practitioners spending more time with patients, or asking them to write about family histories before asking about symptoms, knowing that through a thorough understanding of a patients’ background, more helpful information about their current conditions may emerge. 

After graduating from California State University Bakersfield in 2008 with a degree in literature, Natalie worked in technical publications at NASA. She’s always loved science (and says if she wasn’t a writer she would be an entomologist) but it wasn’t until her MA program in creative writing at California State University Northridge that Natalie realized writing could be a tool of discovery and could help her better understand her own diagnoses. 

Her graduate thesis “Desert Anxieties” was a hybrid work that explored her own neurodivergence. The paper was written in IEEE, a format commonly used for scientific publications. By using this style typically reserved for detached scientific observation, Natalie put herself as the work’s case study, interrogating the distanced treatment she typically received from doctors and psychiatrists. 

Now, Natalie’s work continues to explore trauma studies and disability, especially neurodivergence as it presents as ADHD and autism. As a neurodivergent writer, Natalie is well aware of the power of writing as a way of interacting and making sense of the world. It’s a powerful tool that she wants to teach to people who may not be familiar with the practice. 

“WIth Open Arms” (a photograph from Natalie’s MA thesis)

Currently, Natalie teaches WR 121, an introductory composition course that is typically populated by mostly STEM majors–and she loves it. While still only in the first term of her two-year program, Natalie hopes to work in the medical field after graduating, teaching writing to mental health practitioners and therapists, giving them resources to pass on to their clients about the power of writing as a tool for self-discovery. 

Tune in Sunday 12/03 to hear Natalie talk about all this and more on KBVR 88.7, or catch the episode later on our podcast. 

My new neighbor might be a ghost (shrimp)

Our next guest is Matt Vaughan, a third year PhD student in Integrative Biology working with Prof. Sarah Henkel in the Benthic Ecology Lab. Matt originally hails from Melbourne, Australia and recently joined the ID team as a host. A major theme of his research interest is biological “disturbance and change”, meaning the impact of stressors on organisms and ecosystems.

Matt’s PhD research centers around invertebrate life found on the ocean floor, known to researchers as the “Benthic zone”. He focuses especially on ghost shrimp, a type of crustacean that builds burrows on the ocean floor. In the Pacific Northwest, ghost shrimp have historically inhabited estuaries, the areas where rivers flow into the sea. Within the last decade however, a significant population of ghost shrimp has arisen much farther than expected for the species, more than seven miles off the coast of Oregon and southern Washington. This mysterious colonization could have been spurred by environmental disruptions such as climate change, and the shrimp also represent a significant change in the local ecology of the ocean floor. Firstly, ghost shrimp burrows alter the habitat for preexisting invertebrate species, reducing stability on the seafloor. The large and intricate burrows are often in high densities, and the sand they kick up through their bioturbation can affect the survival and behavior of invertebrates like bivalves. Ghost shrimp burrows also oxygenate the sediment and host vibrant microbial communities, together altering the biogeochemistry of the ocean floor.

Matt (orange hat), surveying the latest floor sample

Matt studies these ecological dynamics by surveying the ocean floor during boat trips out of Newport. His team samples the bed using box cores to collect, identify and count the invertebrates. Matt then uses computational and statistical analysis to characterize the population structure of these areas, particularly seeking to tease out the differences in species distribution between areas with and without ghost shrimp burrows. Ghost shrimp are also relatively large compared to other invertebrates in the area, so their arrival provides a significant potential food source for larger marine life like sturgeon and even gray whales. In the rest of his PhD, Matt hopes to model this trophic impact in the long term.

Spooky

To hear more about Matt’s research and how his travels to the Great Barrier Reef and Southeast Asia helped him discover his love for science, tune into KBVR 88.7 tonight at 7pm or listen soon after wherever you get your podcasts.

The Memoir of El

This week on ID we interview El Rose, a talented first year MFA student of non-fiction in the School of Writing, Literature and Film. El draws on their background growing up in rural Arkansas to write about topics of class, immigration, intergenerational trauma, identity, and the intersection of it all. 

Their work falls primarily within the realm of memoir. ‘Memoir’ is derived from the French word ‘mémoire’, which means ‘reminiscence’ or ‘memory’. Memoir falls into the category of non-fiction but is ultimately a subjective narrative in which the author remembers experiences, emotions, and events from a certain event or period in their life. Memoirs focus on conveying their perception of these memories in a way that is emotionally truthful but isn’t necessarily factual. 

El began their journey in writing at the University of Memphis, although they’ve been writing in one manner or another for most of their life. They spent eight years between finishing undergrad and coming to OSU, working through the ranks in the food industry and eventually becoming an owner of a cafe in the Portland area. Through a series of perfectly timed events, and their own desire to make more space to take their writing seriously, El came to OSU to set out on the grad school journey. 

To hear more about how writing a memoir works, as well as El’s journey from Arkansas to Oregon, tune in this Sunday, November 12th live on 88.7 FM or on the live stream. Missed the show? You can listen to the recorded episode on your preferred podcast platform!