by Jane Horovitz, EPSCoR Student Writer Sharon Mann did not come from a scientific background or an academic family. After attending a small private college for a short amount of time and studying humanities fresh out of high school, Mann dropped out and moved to Alaska instead. There, she worked in two fishing industry positions […]

Jane Horovitz, EPSCoR Student Writer Samuel Tan, from Singapore, is a new Ph.D. student in the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, working with Maine EPSCoR’s current Track-1 award, Maine-eDNA. According to Tan, despite Singapore’s urbanization, the area has a surprising amount of wildlife on land and in sea. “Even though our water there is […]

by Jane Horovitz, Maine EPSCoR Student Writer Sydney Greenlee, who is originally from Chantilly, Virginia, knew she wanted to be a marine biologist since the age of two, but she never really saw herself as a molecular ecologist. That is, until she did a REU (research undergraduate experience) with Pete Countway at Bigelow Laboratory for […]

Jane Horovitz, EPSCoR Student Writer Rene Francolini didn’t even know the field of computational biology existed until her high school computer science teacher suggested that she combine her knack for logic and puzzles with her love for ecology and marine biology. Francolini did just that, completing a degree in biology with a focus in computational […]

Nick Record has worked on projects covering topics from viruses to whales and ocean physics, but he always comes in with the math and computer science piece of the puzzle. Record is a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, where he’s worked for seven years. Record is also a researcher on Maine […]

By Jane Horovitz, ME EPSCoR Student Writer Phoebe Jekielek grew up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, about seven hours away from the ocean. Ever since she was 10 years old, Jekielek knew she wanted to study marine biology, even though she was a little scared of what was in the ocean. The intimidation didn’t stop Jekielek, but […]

Jane Horovitz, ME EPSCoR Student Writer After Grayson Huston received his undergraduate degree in marine science from the University of California, Berkeley, he decided to not go directly into graduate school, largely because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to specialize in. He knew he wanted to study science, either marine or aquatic, but he […]

Jane Horovitz, EPSCoR Student Writer Alex Ascher has always been drawn to the less understood aspects of science. So, naturally, he was interested in the marine world. Ascher sees the ocean as a black box — something that’s difficult to understand fully, but serves as a great opportunity to explore new routes of investigation. In […]

Jane Horovitz, EPSCoR Student Writer Kyle Oliveira grew up only 15 minutes from the coast in Brick, New Jersey. His mother is an engineer and his father is an eighth grade science teacher, so from a young age, Oliveira was immersed in STEM. “I think I just grew up into a type of culture that […]