USFCMS Rising Tides, v4 - Summer 2015

RISING TIDESSummer 2015 Edition

A Publication of The University of South Florida College of Marine Science

FEATURED SCIENCE ARTICLE

The summer 2015 newsletter has arrived and we have lots of news and science to share.

This summer’s highlighted alumni have been busy and share exciting news and science stories.

Reflections on a Career in Marine Science: Dr. Pamela Hallock Muller

Limestones and Forams and Corals! Oh My!

MESSAGE FROM DEAN DIXON

FEATURED ALUMS

A Publication of The University of South Florida College of Marine Science2

08 Faculty Spotlight

Contents

04

09

04

09 05

05

Message from the Dean

Note to CMS Alumni

College News and Events

USF 50th Anniversary celebrations kick off this year. Dean Dixon shares the news and gets ready for CMS Anniversary in 2017

Congrats to CMS students whose research and proposals are winning presti-gious awards. Learn more on page 5.

A Publication of The University of South Florida College of Marine Science 3

23

10

18

20

07

20

05Alumni Tidbits

Featured Alumni

In Development

Featured Science Article

The crew of the ocean Research Vessel Weatherbird II was honored today for their role in last month’s rescue of a missing boater More on page 5.

The Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge has just announced its finalists, and we made the cut! This award provides the opportuni-ty for Dr. Stallings and his team to continue with development of the LAIR Lionfish trap, and compete for nearly half a million dol-lars of funding that could help bring afford-able Lionfish filets to dinner tables along the Gulf. Read more on page 7.


We are proud to share the achievements of our faculty, students, staff, and alumni with you in this Summer 2015 newsletter. Our alumni up-dates include notes from our first and second graduates, Carole Goetz (MA 1970) and Karen Steidinger (MA 1971). This is a great way to kick off planning for our 50th anniversary in 2017. Underway this year is the 50th anniversary of USF St. Petersburg. The yearlong celebration kicks off with a Block Party on September 12th. 3 Daughters Brewing is even creating a spe-cial brew just for the occasion! Make sure you check out the many opportunities to join in the celebration throughout the 2015-2016 year (usf-sp.edu/50years/events) and to help us plan for our 2017 celebration.

We are also proud to announce the return

of Current Collections by way of the Atlanta Science Festival to the 2015 St. Petersburg Science Festival, October 16-17, 2015. As you may recall, this plastic pollution art sculpture anchored last year’s festival as part of a col-laboration between CMS, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, Georgia State University Welch School or Art & Design and the City of St. Petersburg. This time the sculpture is here to stay thanks in part to the efforts of the St. Petersburg Public Arts Commission. Be sure to engage with Current Collections during your next visit to campus.

It’s a great time to be a USF Bull!

- Dean Jacqueline Eaby Dixon, Ph.D.

Message from the Dean


Abdiel Laureano-Rosario was select-ed for NASA NESSF fellowship.

He been selected as one of the 64 recipients (out of 391 applicants) of this year’s prestigious NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF).

Abdiel Laureano-Rosario , a Ph.D. student is working with Frank Muller Karger.

FIO shared video from the vessel showing it was dark, with 3-foot waves, and a fast-moving current.

“It was pretty dangerous out there,” said FIO Marine Tech.

USF research students, FIO crew save boater

July 20, 2015

College NewsUSCG Sector Commander Captain Case presented an award to the crew of the R/V Weatherbird II on July 22, 2015. Tampa Bay media outlets were on scene for a follow up story about the Weatherbird rescue of a man who fell overboard at night and was missing for over an hour in Tampa Bay.

Guy Harvey Scholar NOSAMS Internship NASA NESSF fellowship

The scholarship, established in 2010 through a partnership between Flor-ida Sea Grant and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, recognizes stu-dents at Florida universities whose research focuses on the biology, ecology, habitat or management of fish in Florida’s marine environment. Since the award was established, $124,000 in scholarships has now been given to 27 students at nine Florida universities.

Marcy Cockrell, a Ph.D. student is working with Steve Murawski..

Devon Firesinger was awarded a NOSAMS (National Ocean Scienc-es Accelerator Mass Spectrometer, WHOI) research internship. He submitted a proposal titled, “Utiliza-tion of continuous flow accelerator mass spectrometry and Bayesian accumulation modeling to produce a real time radiocarbon age model of a sediment core.”

The internship includes research funds and a travel allowance.

DevonFiresinger, a M.S. student is working with Brad Rosenheim..


April 20, 2015 marks the five year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This was the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, spill-ing almost 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a three month period.

As we reflect on the research accomplishments of the C-IMAGE consortium, it is important to remember that the lives of 11 families were forever changed that day.

What are we doing now? Continued monitoring of sediment and fish contamination in the northern Gulf to evaluate “Return to Baseline”. At the Mote Aquaculture Park, we are expos-ing four Gulf fish species to: chronic low level oil, acute high level oil, chronic then acute oil and a controls (no oil) to test fish response to sub-lethal exposures. We are returning to IXTOC-1 in the Southern Gulf of Mexico to characterize the 1979-1980 blowout and to evaluate rate of recovery in an analog system to Deepwater Horizon, though much shallower. We plan to 1) Conduct a complete Gulf of Mexico survey of shelf fishes and sediments for the first ever com-prehensive baseline, 2) Conduct high-pressure experiments with and without dispersants to determine if and how much deep dispersant use contributed to oil degradation, 3) Train the next generation of oil spill scientists and responders, and 4) Inform the public about the risks and consequences of oil extraction policies.

Five Years Later Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill


2015 FinalistTaking Back the Lion’s Share

University of South Flor-ida College of Marine Science researchers, a

seafood wholesaler, a Saraso-ta restaurateur, and a family of commercial fishermen aim to develop a trap allowing for commercial level catch of invasive lionfish. They plan to develop a new fishery in the Gulf of Mexico and provide

new market opportunities for seafood businesses. The Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge has just announced its final-ists, and we made the cut! This award provides the opportuni-ty for Dr. Stallings and his team to continue with development of the LAIR Lionfish trap, and compete for nearly half a million dollars of funding that

could help bring affordable Lionfish fillets to dinner tables along the Gulf.

One of our own PhD candidates has been chosen to sail on the Integrated Ocean Discovery Pro-gram’s (IODP) drill ship, R/V JOIDES Resolution. Christian Haller will be sailing as a micro paleon-tologist/biostratigrapher on a 60 day cruise to examine the paleoceanography of the Indonesian Throughflow. He will be blogging about their results and what life is like on board one of the largest (145 m long) and most unusual research vessels in the world.

Guests from CORE Wealth Management partici-pated in “The Ocean and Me” tour at CMS. They experienced what it feels like to be on a research vessel thanks to the Florida Institute of Oceanog-raphy as well as learned how ocean technology has increased the precision and resolution of data thanks to the Ocean Technology Group. Many were surprised that our Paleo Lab scientists get to play with mud every day and that the most abundant organisms in the ocean are viruses as shared by the Marine Genomics Lab.

International Ocean Discovery ProgramThe Ocean and Me Tour

In Other News


Faculty Spotlight

Mya Breitbart is a National Academy of Sciences’ Kavli Frontiers Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fel-low and was recognized as one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant Ten” young scientists in 2013. Her re-search uses genomic sequencing to explore the identify, diversity and distribution of viruses in a wide range of environments, ranging from seawater to sewage. In addition, her laboratory has created new methods for discovering novel viral pathogens causing disease in plants and animals.

Mya is a lifelong Girl Scout and has positively impacted girls in the Tampa Bay region through creating and equipping a fully-functional marine science laboratory at the local Girl Scout camp Wai Lani. She has hosted marine science and technology workshops for over 200 girls on top of running numerous camps. She is also involved as a faculty mentor for the USF Oceanography Camp for Girls, a volunteer moderator for the Na-tional Ocean Science Spoonbill Bowl, a FabFems role model, a Florida Girls Collaborative Project leadership team member and an advisory board member for the Florida Aquarium’s Center for Conservation.


We really want to hear from you. So, please send me your news including a photo of you (recent or past tense), your family, kids, etc. Just send several sentences on what you have been up to or some special occasion (promotion, award, etc.) or something personal you want to share (birth of child, anniversary, etc.). We will put these short, newsy notes in the Alumni Tidbits section.

We will also feature alums in longer, self-authored articles. In this issue that honor goes to Carole Goetz Thomas (the Department of Marine Science’s 1st graduate) Karen Steidinger (the Department of Marine Science’s 2nd graduate), Don Eggimann, Lynn Leonard, Paul Schroeder, and Nate Wood. If you would like to contribute or be featured, we’d love to hear from you. I am trying to give the alums of the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s—first crack at telling the rest of us about themselves since they have been out for a while and have wonderful careers to share.

Finally, we are thinking of a 50th anniversary celebration of the Department’s start (1967) in 2017. This is some time off, but it will be here in a heartbeat. So, if you have any ideas about what we should do to mark the event and that would bring you here to help us celebrate, please let me know. - Albert C. Hine, Faculty Alumni Director

Note to CMS Alumni


Featured AlumniCarole Goetz, Department of Marine Science MA, 1970—The 1st graduate of the Department of Marine Science

As a young graduate, at 21, with a BA in math from a young University of South Florida, in 1968, I wondered what kind of a career to pursue. I taught math for 1 year to 8th and 9th graders which was a completely opportunistic job. I did not have a degree in educa-tion. I would need to become certified in education to continue teaching. I decided to follow my heart. I was interested in something in the environmental science area. I always loved the outdoors and water sports and wanted to get a masters degree in Marine Science. I had a strong undergraduate program in physical and bio-logical science and was accepted in 1969 as a student for the USF marine science program. What I remember most about my time as a marine science student is that the St. Petersburg campus was very small, rather plain, with only a small number of students around. My favor-ite things were the field trips to identify algal and inver-tebrate species, and boat trips to learn how to collect

water samples from different depths. I got an MA degree in Marine Science in December, 1970. My mas-ters thesis was about the effect of humic acid on the red-tide organism, Gymnodinium breve. I did my lab work at the main USF campus. Dr. Dean Martin was my advisor and he did a good job advising.

In 1971, I was happy to get a job as a physical science technician with the US Geological Survey, Water Resources Division (USGS, WRD), in Tampa. I was part of a 2-person lab, collecting and analyzing water samples for chemical and microbiological constituents. My education qualified me for a position as a hydrologist which I applied for and was promoted.

Carole Goetz Thomas, March 2015

As a hydrologist for USGS, WRD, I was able to work on many interesting projects in the Tampa Bay area. These included investigating hydrobiochemical effects of spraying wastewater effluent on land, water quality of Tampa Bay, water quality in the Hillsborough River, and hydrogeologic factors affecting the quality and quantity of ground water near Temple Terrace, Florida. My job was a pleasant mix of field work, data analysis, and report writing. By 1979, I was ready for a change, and transferred to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the USGS, WRD, state office. I sure did miss the watery Bay area! Water study in New Mexico is more centered around the lack of it. My project work consisted of investigating water quality in the San Juan River drainage basin of New Mexico, coal-mine and power-generation effects on surface-water quality, determining infiltration and percolation rates along stream beds, determining evapotranspiration rates, and using air-pressurized slug tests to estimate hydraulic conductivity.

My career with USGS, WRD, lasted 31 years. I retired in 2002, as a young retiree, 55 years old. During my career I published reports under the name Carole L. Goetz and Carole L. Thomas. I was anxious to be retired and have all that time to do any old thing. I am currently married for 24 years to Richard P. Thom-as, also a retired hydrologist. I have a son, stepson, stepdaughter and grandchildren. My husband and I have built our house using “green” building techniques. I can say that building a house is a slow process, but an even slower process is building a boat. My husband and I are 15 years or so, into a pipe dream of building a 47-foot, cutter, sailboat (pictured).


Featured AlumniKaren Steidinger, Department of Marine Science MA, 1971—The 2nd graduate of the Department of Marine Science

When I first moved to Florida from Connecticut in 1963, I was fortunate to get a job as a biological technician with the Flori-da Board of Conservation’s (FBC) Marine Laboratory on Bayboro Peninsula in downtown St. Petersburg. My duties were to identify phytoplankton for red tide studies and to identify and size shrimp larvae. Previous to that I had been a chemistry technician for three years. My education was limited to a two-year junior college de-gree in liberal arts. Obviously, I had a lot to learn. My first thought when I looked through a dissecting microscope was - how am I going to identify all of those tiny, darting, white blobs.

The University of South Florida’s St. Petersburg campus did not exist at that time and the buildings were occu-pied by the FBC, some Eckerd college professors, a cook’s school, and later a police training academy. The pen-insula was a United States Maritime Service Training Station from 1939 to 1950. It was a wonderful place to be at the time, wistful scenery and breezes, cheap hot lunches (50 cents!) provided by the cook’s school, water and boats everywhere. The Army Reserve even had their boats tied up along the seawall for weekend exercises. The peninsula itself had aging wooden buildings from the training station that were originally barracks or class-rooms. Also there were other structures, one was designated as an air raid shelter. Two others were concrete pools that later served for holding dolphins to be tested for visual recognition of patterns and color densities by a USF professor.

Several Eckerd biology professors occupied what is now Building F, a reinforced concrete building on the Campus. One studied widow and recluse spiders. And although I dislike spiders, I found his work fascinating because he collected his live, venomous specimens from underneath the green park benches that were all over St. Petersburg! It made me think twice before I sat down outside – anywhere. Later, after Eckerd moved out and the DNR took over Buildings F and C, USF moved in to the two barracks buildings and converted them to classrooms in the mid-late 1960s. Later, USF Marine Science converted the large concrete building known as Building MSL to classrooms and laboratories. Professors from USF Tampa Campus also taught here on the St. Petersburg Campus. For example Invertebrate Zoology lectures and labs were held in Building F and focused on available specimens from local marine waters. This was a nice arrangement in the early days because Tampa faculty with marine expertise could be tapped to teach at Bayboro.

Karen A. Steidinger, Ph.D.

The Director of the FBC Marine Laboratory when I was hired was Robert M. Ingle who started as a Navy trop-ical disease specialist in parasitology (malaria!) and later took up marine biology with a particular passion for oysters. As a matter of fact, he was the first marine biologist hired by the State of Florida. He and Bonnie Eldred (one of the Marine Lab’s shrimp/red tide/fish biologists) were my first mentors. Later mentors were USF professors and my professional colleagues. USF played a prominent role in my career.

As a USF student, I received a B.A. in Zoology in 1969 (Tampa campus), a M. A. in Marine Science in 1971 (St. Petersburg campus) and a Ph.D. in Biology in 1979 (Tampa). I did this working full time while going to school part time. I was able to do all three degrees by working at the State marine laboratory and making up my time nights and weekends for the time I attended classes and labs and because of the support of my mother Doro-thy. One marine chemistry professor was very kind and let two of us work in a laboratory in the MSL buildingat night so we did not have to make up time for work. Other professors were also understanding about astudent trying to get a degree and working full-time. As you can tell, working on or near Bayboro or even in



Bayboro Peninsula in 1969

St. Petersburg, is a definite advantage for anyone that wants to pursue an advanced degree. The proximity allows for splitting work and school. The Florida Marine Re-search Institute (previously the Marine Laboratory), FMRI, and now the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) were both fortunate to have marine science graduate students next door that could be tapped for part-time employment. There are many outstanding professors that I had during my 14 years of USF schooling, particularly Drs. Clinton Dawes who was my Ph.D. advi-sor and mentor, John Lawrence,

Joseph Simon, from the then departments of Botany or Zoology, and Thomas Hopkins, Kendall Carder, and Thomas Pyle, from the Department of Marine Science. Of course there are more, but these specific teachers were my first introduction to the diversity and complexity of marine science. Back in those days, the four core Marine Science courses had extensive laboratories and lectures. Later there were more professors at the De-partment of Marine Science (now the College of Marine Science) whom I collaborated with either on grants or on Bayboro Peninsula matters such as a joint new building for the state laboratory ( then the the Florida Marine Research Institute, FMRI) and the Department of Marine Science. The USF portion of the building became the Knight Oceanographic Research Center.

As I advanced with my education and degrees, I also advanced in my work career. I started as a laboratory technician in 1963 with the state laboratory, then became a marine biologist, then a section supervisor, then a Marine Laboratory Supervisor (1978), and then Chief of Marine Science and Technology (1980), and then Chief of Marine Research (1983). Today that position has grown to the Director of Fish and Wildlife Research at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute with increased responsibilities and staff. I was Chief for thirteen years and developed an integrated marine fisheries/habitat/protected species/assessment program that addressed ecosystem monitoring and research. It was a time of program building, lobbying, and justifying monitoring and research to manage and protect Florida’s marine resources. It was not done alone. Everyone at the Institute and several of those in Tallahassee at the Division and Executive levels were instrumental in vision and hard work that went into programs and their successful outcome. During this time I served on a lot of work-related advisory groups and committees. Academically I served on four Ph.D. committees, three Ph.D. defense chairs, nine Masters, and as an external examiner for three foreign Ph.D. students. Another advisory activity that stands out in my mind is the Florida Saltwater Fisheries and Advisory Council. I was their Scientific Advisor from 1980-1982 and, with laboratory staff, helped put together fisheries management issues, some of which could be addressed by fishing licenses. The result of these efforts helped lay the groundwork to establish the Marine Fisheries Commission as well as saltwater fishing licenses. In 1993, I requested to go back to research on phytoplankton and red tide. When I stepped down there were about 300 institute staff at the main laboratory on Bayboro and at field stations. Today the FWRI has more than 600 employees located throughout the state. Going back to research lead to more



collaborations with USF. It was during my tenure as Chief of Marine Research that I had a unique opportunity to build bridges between a state agency and a state university with facilities on the same peninsula.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Peter Betzer and I started to discuss some of our dreams for a marine science oriented peninsula, one of shared resources. We discussed a joint building with offices, classrooms, laboratories, an atrium, cafeteria, and visiting scientist apartments. Later we looked at possible funding and what State funds could be tapped. If we went in jointly, there were more possibilities. Dr. Kent Fanning was part of those discus-sions. My first obstacle as Chief of the state marine laboratory was to convince my superiors that working with USF to get joint facilities would be a wise decision even if there were past conflicts. I assured everyone that it would be a win-win situation and that we could work together. The joint facility was opened in 1994. Fade to today and look at the College of Marine Science and the FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. Both institu-tions have grown and developed in stature, and Peter and others have attracted more marine science activities to the adjacent area and to St. Petersburg. Kenneth Haddad, another Marine Science graduate, replaced me as Chief, and then went on to become the Executive Director of the FWC. A formable feat for a CMS graduate! CMS has and always will be a superb educational experience for students….something to build careers on. Gil McRae took over as Director of the Institute for Ken Haddad and now represents FWC in its interests on Bay-boro. His background is in fisheries and fisheries assessment and he is a good fit for the Bayboro community.

After my stint as Chief of Marine Research I became a Senior Research Scientist (1993-2003) and had to evalu-ate and build an expanded red tide program involving monitoring, research, and prediction. This was not, and could not be, done in isolation. It was based on recommendations from a Florida Harmful Algal Bloom Task Force for research topics and priorities. At the time our Institute was transferred from Department of Natural Resources to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Secretary of that Department estab-lished a Task Force co-chaired by DEP and the Department of Public Health. I served on that Task Force along with USF CMS professors and others. At one point I chaired the Task Force. It was during this time, that I helped justify special State funding for red tide studies, jointly with Mote Marine Laboratory and START, for monitoring, event response and mitigation strategies. At the same time, NOAA and EPA had solicitations for harmful algal bloom research and mitigation. I was successful in putting together teams of researchers that received over 15 million in federal dollars for HAB programs administered through our State agency. It was during this time that I developed a close collaboration with Drs. John Walsh, Robert Weisberg, and Gabriel Vargo, all of CMS, on red tide research and prediction. During my career, I have authored or co-authored more than100 scientific papers in eighteen different refereed journals (mostly phycological), twenty-eight books and have served as editor or co-editor of three books. I retired from the FWRI in 2003 and transferred what grants I still had to staff that were already working on them. In 2008 and 2010, while working at the Florida Institute of Oceanography as a Harmful Algal Specialist part-time (2005-2013), I received federal grants to develop US-Mexico Harmful Algal Bloom training programs for public health and environmental agencies. Dean Milliken and Drs. Sandra Vargo and Jyotika Virmani were instrumental to my success. Prior to being employed by FIO, I worked with Dean on several projects, one of which, in the late 1980s-early 1990s, was the establishment of the joint Keys Marine Laboratory in Layton, FL, an educational and research facility. In 2011, I went back to work part-time at FWRI.

Today, I am finishing up projects, developing instructional materials, teaching workshops on dinoflagellates, and tying loose ends together. The title of this article represents my professional career ……all on eleven acres. Yes, I did look elsewhere and was offered full professorships at two universities, but I declined. Bayboro and the surrounding community offered more than the attraction of a new venue and much higher pay, but it took leaving Bayboro and actually seeing other institutions to know that Bayboro was home.


Featured AlumniLynn Leonard, CMS PhD 1994

I started collecting rocks when I wasthree years old, so I guess it was noreal surprise when I decided to becomea geologist! In fact, my very !rstclass freshman year was physical geology.The crazy thing is that a girl whodivided her early years between therural anthracite region of Pennsylvaniaand city life in the Washington D.C.metropolitan area, somehow developeda love for the ocean and coast.The pivotal event was an extended!eld trip to North Carolina’s OuterBanks early in my senior year. Fascinated by Jockey’s Ridge and the erosion prob-lems at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, I decided to attend Duke University to

work with Orrin Pilkey before going to law school. But graduate school changes people and I soon discovered a passion for research and teaching. Thus, two years later, I packed up my 1976 Plymouth Valiant and headed down I-95 to pursue a PhD under Al Hine.

Arriving at USF in August 1988, I was apprehensive about pursuing a degree in Marine Science. I had little coursework in chemistry and physics and had not taken biology since 10th grade! I felt a bit out of my league sitting in Biological Oceanography that first day surrounded by biologists (and my future husband, USF alum Stephen Kinsey). I soon discovered, however, that I had little reason to worry. A deep bond existed among the students and I was deeply impressed by their comradery. I fondly remember good times at TGIF, The Chattaway, or Ringside, and traditional Marine Science events like the Turkey Bowl and Superstars. And, who could ever forget the late night mullet smoking parties, dancing poolside to the Dead Ichthyologists, or Bob Byrne’s great practical jokes? (Yes, I was a target at least once!). Even more memorable, however, were the research experiences. My dissertation, supported by the USGS, was a continuation of Al Hine’s west-central Florida marsh project and examined the physical and bio-physical processes controlling sediment transport in coastal wetlands. Many long days and nights were spent building boardwalks and conducting experiments in the creeks and Juncus marshes of Crystal River, FL and bayous and Spartina marshes near Cocodrie, LA. Countless more hours were spent in the ‘flume lab’ building and calibrating velocity probes, soldering circuit boards, and programming data loggers. Thanks to the help of CMS alum Walt Bowles and my co-advisor Mark Luther, I somehow managed to collect and interpret some of the very first fine-scale hydrodynamic data in vegetated marsh canopies.

When I left USF to take an assistant professor position in the Department of Earth Science at the Universi-ty of North Carolina Wilmington, I was highly prepared to establish my own laboratory and mentor my own students. In fact, my first week on the job, I accepted my first graduate student. Together, we established a research program focusing on sediment transport studies of upland tidal creeks, back barrier marshes, and blackwater tidal swamp systems in southeast North Carolina. By 1999, I was involved in several large studies of coastal wetland systems including tidal swamps of the lower Cape Fear River (funded by the U.S. Army Corps) and the Everglades (funded by the National Park Service). At this time, I also became a co-PI on UN-CW’s Coastal Ocean Research and Monitoring Program (CORMP) and initiated a series of sediment transport studies on the inner and mid-continental shelf. Five years later, I was appointed to lead the NOAA funded program and soon became very engaged in ocean observing and NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). Today, I am not only Director of CORMP but also Chair of the Departments of Geography and Geology and (due to an administrative reorganization) Physics and Physical Oceanography.

Lynn Leonard and Friends


Featured AlumniPaul Schroeder, MS 1981

Standing between hoodoos of Cappadocia, Turkey with Mt. Ericyes in the distance. Turkey is a land of dynamically changing geology with a long history of human influences on the land-scape.

Greetings from Istanbul Turkey where I am in the midst of a one-year sabbatical cour-tesy of the Turkish National Science Foun-dation (TÜBITAK) visiting scholar program. Locals refer to the two respective shore-lines of the Bosporus as the Rumeli side and the Anatolia side. It is one of few places in the world where you can stand in one spot and truly say East meets West. Wheth-er you are a physical scientist or a biological scientist, one universal truism is that most of the “action” takes place at the inter-face between two fields. I’ve developed a penchant for the study of microbe-mineral interactions, which brings me to Turkey, and other places like Russia and the Pied-mont of the S.E. United States. Over the past decade I’ve been involved with several initiatives including NSF’s Microbial Obser-vatory Program and Critical Zone Observa-tory (CZO) Program.

While in Istanbul I’m still collaborating with colleagues at the University of Georgia and from the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where we continue to work on the hot springs in Uzon Caldera of Kamchatka. Our current focus is on clay minerals, rare-earth elements, and metals. I have a student looking for thermophillic ammonia oxidizing Achaea seeking links between copper and the nitrogen cycle in

Uzon. Kamchatka is in an incredibly beautiful area, but at the same time it is extremely harsh. Challenges come from hungry bears, voracious mosquitos, steaming geysers, muddy terrain, and helicoptering in fickle maritime weather.

The “Critical Zone” includes the porous places extending from the treetops to the bedrock. My interest is in the clay minerals and their role in the fate and transport of nutrients, carbon, and pollutants, which has me working in the CZO network both in the SE United States and in Turkey. These settings offer a chance to study decadal to millennial scale landscape changes influenced by human forcing. It was my interdisciplinary train-ing received at USF that made for a solid foundation to help analyze such complex systems (thanks to Drs. Betzer, Blake, Briggs, Burns, Carder, Doyle, Fanning, Hine, Garrels, Steinmetz, et al.). The question “how old is that rock or soil?” is taking on new meaning in the context of life-sustaining matters such as water quality,


Featured AlumniPaul Schroeder, MS 1981

land use, carbon cycling, contaminant transport, and climate change. In particular, we are finding that trace amounts of carbon occluded into minerals tell us about rates of erosion, rates of biogeochemical mineral weathering, and the role of humans. In essence, we are realizing that some minerals recrystallize at rates much faster and more deeply below the Earth’s surface than previously thought. As I tour and lecture throughout Turkey there is constant marveling at the interface of people and geology as seen in its cultural history and in its rocks. For example, Gaziantep has been continuously populated for almost 10,000 years, whereas during the same time frame the North Anatolian fault has slipped nearly a mile! The opportunity to lecture at universities throughout Turkey has shown my wife, Linda, and me that collegiality and kindness runs deep. If you ever have the opportunity to collaborate in the region, then take it. You will not be disappointed.

I look forward to my return to UGA (unless USF-CMS makes me an offer I can’t refuse… lol). Being a past-Pres-ident of the Clay Minerals Society keeps me engaged with society work. I’ve stepped away from eight years of administrative service as Associate Department Head and Director of the UGA Electron Microscopy Center. I’ll continue teaching summers with the UGA Interdisciplinary Field Program that’s been running since 1988, which integrates geology, anthropology, and ecology (ifp.gly.uga.edu/ifp). I keep in touch with Rick Wall, Doug Parker, Gregg Brooks, and a few others from the 1978-1981 Era. I am proud to be an alumnus of USF and I see the USF College of Marine Sciences has grown to be a global center of excellence with that same esprit-de-corps that existed thirty-five years ago. If you are an alumna of us reading this, please be generous by giving to the USF-CMS. As someone who works in a large state university system, I know such gifts make a big difference in the quality of the experience for the students.

Standing in the Grand Canyon leading in a summer undergrad-uate Interdisciplinary Field Program that has been running since 1988. Geology, anthropology, and ecology are taught while camping for 8 weeks throughout the western United States.


Featured AlumniNate Wood, MS 1996

Nate Wood and family in Pacific City, OR, after a day of dory fishing

It’s been twenty years since I was mucking around Waccasassa Bay, setting out sediment traps, dropping current meters offshore, and avoiding oyster beds on the boat ride home. I have great memories of fieldwork and time in the lab with Al Hine, Eric Wright, Lynn Leon-ard, and Steve Goodbred. I learned so much from them and can’t thank them enough. In my final semester, I also had the good for-tune of being a teacher’s assistant for a nat-ural hazards course taught by Sarah Tebbens and Chris Barton. This class exposed me to the world of integrated social and natural sciences and I’ve been working in that arena ever since.After completing my masters at USF, I moved to Oregon. Interested in the societal aspects of natural hazards, I went for a PhD in geog-raphy at Oregon State University in the mid-1990s. At that time, natural scientists were publishing on the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis from the Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ). No one, however, was focusing on how communities may be vulnerable to these threats, in terms of the potential for loss of life or disruptions. So, for my PhD under Jim Good, I characterized these vulnerabilities using GIS tools, a risk perception study, and a community-based assessment.

As I was finishing my PhD, I was offered a student position with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Geo-graphic Science Center, a group that focuses on the societal aspects of natural hazards and resources. After I graduated in 2002, the student position became a full-time job as a research geographer and I’ve been with the USGS ever since. Because much of my work is in the Pacific Northwest, I am located in Portland, Oregon. At the USGS, I continue to focus on societal vulnerability to natural hazards. I’m still publishing on aspects of tsunamis related to CSZ earthquakes, but have also done tsunami-related work in Alaska, Oregon, Wash-ington, Hawaii, American Samoa, and New Zealand. We just published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that uses GIS-based, pedestrian-evacuation modeling and statistical clustering analysis to compare community vulnerability to tsunamis across the entire Cascadia region. Our methods are now being used in multiple states and countries. I was on a National Research Council committee to review the nation’s tsunami warning system. I’ve also done vulnerability work related to volcanic lahars, coastal change, hurricanes, and earthquake hazards. I have been asked to share our methods with colleagues at comparable national science agencies in New Zealand, Chile, and Japan. I enjoy doing research and providing training that directly benefit the public and thank USF for helping prepare me for the work I do today.


The USF College of Marine Science has much to celebrate these days. Four significant milestones come immediately to mind; 1) The Oceanography Camp for Girls (OCG) celebrates its 25th Anniversa-ry, 2) USF- St. Petersburg kicks off its 50th Anniver-sary, 3) The St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership contributes $150,000 towards the Abby Sallenger Memorial Endowment and 4) CMS begins planning for its 50th Anniversary. These milestones are the result of significant philanthropic efforts by numer-ous individuals, corporations and foundations that believed in the vision of establishing the USF St. Pe-tersburg campus, a world renowned oceanographic program, a STEM program to encourage women to pursue a career in science and endowments to ensure our future sustainability.

These philanthropic efforts continue to be alive and

well today. This summer, Duke Energy presented the OCG with a check for $25,000 in celebration of its 25th Anniversary. Since 1991, this model science program has been offered at no cost to ensure accessibility to any/all rising 9th graders who wish to participate. I’m sure many of our alumni have participated in this program in some fashion or another and can attest to both a personal as well a camper’s transformative experience. As we plan for the 25th OCG Anniversary celebration in the Spring of 2016, we welcome any stories you would like to share.

This month we will also celebrate a $150,000 dona-tion towards the Abby Sallenger Memorial Endow-ment in partnership with The St. Petersburg

In Development


Downtown Partnership. As many of you may recall, Abby Sallenger was instrumental in establishing the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in 1988. The USGS continues to play a major role in shaping the marine science landscape in St. Petersburg and beyond. Abby’s Legacy is Our Future and we are thrilled that Abby’s Legacy will continue at CMS in perpetuity through a schol-arship that supports our student’s educational expenses that are not otherwise funded by grants. Your Legacy can also be Our Future. I welcome the opportunity to discuss opportunities in which you can make a difference, as many others have, here at CMS.

Two 50th Anniversaries are just around the corner. USF St. Petersburg kicks off their celebration with a block party on September 12 from 10 am – 3 pm.

Please join us if your schedule permits and check their website for the year-long calendar of events www.usfsp.edu/50years. CMS is also in the early stages of planning its 50th Anniversary. I will echo Al Hine’s request and encourage you to share with us what events/activities would bring you back to campus to help us celebrate. Please feel free to contact me at any time at (727) 553-3376 or [email protected].

Thank you and we look forward to sharing our future successes with you!

E. Howard RutherfordDirector of Development



Limestones and Forams and Corals! Oh My!The Marine Science Career of Pamela Hallock Muller

Pamela Hallock Muller

Natural history is my passion: early years on the prairie, where the seasons, rainfall or lack thereof, wind direction, outbreaks of insect pests and all such aspects of nature were integral to daily life; first attempts at scientific research for high school sci-ence fairs; discovering ecology from the classic Odum textbook “Fundamentals of Ecology”; and falling in love with geology as a Seasonal Ranger Naturalist in Glacier National Park.

Graduate school at the University of Hawai’i brought it all together. To me, oceanogra-phy is ecology on steroids!

One of the definitions Odum gave of “ecology” is “the study of the structure and function of nature”. Oceanog-raphy is ecology/natural history at its finest – combining the physical, chemical and biological sciences from the whole Earth perspective through geologic time. One cannot even hope to understand any kind of organ-ism, let alone an ecosystem, without recognizing its evolutionary context, its physical and chemical toleranc-es, its similarities and differences from other organisms, and its symbioses and inter dependencies with other life forms. Observing natural systems, learning from the observations of others, conducting experiments, and synthesizing insights into presentations and manuscripts that others can understand and build upon, have been my life-long pursuits.

Over the past 32 years, the focus of research in the my lab has been to understand the environments in which prolific calcification can occur, particularly the advantages and inherent limitations of algal symbiosis in calcifying organisms, and how such understanding can be used to interpret the geologic past, recognize anthropogenic impacts in the present, and predict future responses of calcareous organisms to global and regional changes. My early interest in population dynamics of reef foraminifera (forams) and their responses to environmental changes has continued through the years, with both geologic and resource-management applications. Since publication of the “Foraminifera In Reef Assessment and Monitoring” (FoRAM) Index (or FI) in 2003, the Great Barrier Reef Park Authority has adopted the FI as one of their management tools, and stud-ies applying it have been carried out in all major oceans, as well as the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Red Seas. My publication record includes more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and more than 50 other published book chapters and conference proceedings, many also peer reviewed.

My 60+ graduate students have come from a variety of backgrounds, have had a variety of interests, and have pursued a variety of career paths. You can find them in national, state, and local governmental and private en-vironmental or educational positions around the world, as well as several who have since gone into health-re-lated fields. As the first married-female graduate student in the Department of Oceanography at UH, I was accused of “wasting tax-payer money” by pursuing a graduate degree. When I was completing my Ph.D., I was asked repeatedly “What can you possibly do with your degree?”


Featured Science ArticleLimestones and Forams and Corals! Oh My!The Marine Science Career of Pamela Hallock Muller

Student collecting forams for future research

From those experiences, I have always been more concerned about providing oppor-tunities to earn an advanced degree than guaranteeing funding to do so or worrying about what the graduates would do with their degrees. Gumption is the single most important predictor of success, from my perspective. Moreover, in several instances, well-funded students have been the slow-est to graduate or, in a few heartbreaking instances, did not complete their degrees at all. In contrast, nearly a dozen Florida Department of Natural Resources (now Fish and Wildlife) Research Institute em-ployees have earned Master’s degrees with me, many while working full time with the Coral Reef Research Team. A current Ph.D. candidate is deeply involved in FWRI/NOAA efforts to define habitats with the best potential for restoring threatened coral species. Fortunately, many of my students have earned fellowships to support their research, thanks to their motivation and accomplishments, and the generosity of donors to CMS and to the USF Presidential Fellows funds.

In addition to students that I have recruited or that came to me requesting the oppor-tunity to pursue a degree, over the past couple of decades, I have taken on nearly a dozen graduate students whose faculty advisors were no longer in the

department/college for a variety of reasons. A current student, who is a Fulbright Scholar studying in Ger-many, joined my group that way. Two former students, who joined when their original projects in other labs didn’t work out, are now working in England and American Samoa since completing their theses. Dissertation research currently being pursued in my group includes aspects of benthic forams as environmental indica-tors, morphologic and isotopic variability in a key group of planktic forams, coral diseases in the South China Sea, and identifying potential habitat for coral-population restoration. Ongoing Master’s thesis topics include decadal-scale changes in octocoral populations in Biscayne National Park, the relationship of abundance of common larger forams to carbonate chemistry, and differential tolerances of hypoxia in common Florida forams.



Limestones and Forams and Corals! Oh My!The Marine Science Career of Pamela Hallock Muller

Examining cores

Despite being one of the geologically best known, most abundant, diverse, and productive (in terms of calcification) classes of eukaryotes (i.e., organisms whose cells contain nuclei, everything from amoeba to whales) in the oceans, far less is known about the biology of forams than any comparably important group. A per-son can count on one’s fingers the number of labs worldwide working on foram biology; though many more are devoted to measuring shell chemistries of fossil species. Among the few labs where foram biology is reasonably well funded, only two are in the United States, several are in western Europe, and a few others in Australia and Japan. For a variety of reasons, research funding for foram research has always been sparse. As a consequence, my approach to graduate education has been to mentor interdisciplinary scientists with strong quantitative and writ-ing skills, which are keys to success as an environmental scientist, resource man-ager, and informed citizen. Over the years, I have been very fortunate to have my mentoring recognized by the Association for Women Geoscientists (Outstanding Educator Award in 1999), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

(Minority Mentor of the Year in 2012), and by the College of Marine Science (Graduate Mentor of the Year in 2014).

As is natural when one’s field is more widely valued internationally than closer to home, my team has hosted researchers from around the world, starting in the late 1980s. A summer-long stay by a paleon-tologist from Autonoma University in Barcelona opened doors for ongoing collaborations with geosci-entists from several Spanish universities. In the mid-1990s, a lecture tour in Brazil, sponsored by Petro-bras, established friendships and collaborations , including hosting Brazilian scholars. A young Japanese predoctoral visitor, Kazuhiko Fujita, has since become Prof. Fujita, with one of the most active foram bi-ology research labs in the world. A German scholar, who visited as a Master’s student, recently earned her Ph.D. describing calcification mechanisms in benthic forams. A Brazilian student wanted to be my Ph.D. student, but we were able to find her a fellowship to study at the University of Queensland; she has made important breakthroughs using molecular techniques to identify stress responses in forams. As I wind down my research career, I joke that I now live vicariously through the research that my students and collaborators are doing. Fortunately, I can often find insights and implications in their research, and pro-vide analyses and editing recommendations that assist them to publish stronger papers. Starting this past January, I have taken that skill to another level as Editor of the Journal of Foraminiferal Research. A substantial proportion of recent and ongoing foram research, which is not directly related to paleoceanography, is grad-uate-student research or taking place in other countries, often both. The ability to recognize the scientific merit of a manuscript, despite shortcomings in its English presentation, and to be able to assist the authors to more effectively present their work, is a skill that I plan to practice well into retirement.


Alumni Tidbits

Carole Goetz Thomas - Was the first graduate of the Department of Marine Science, receiving her MA in late 1970. Karen Steidinger was the Department’s next graduate, getting her MA in early 1971. See our Featured Alum section for details about their last 45 years!

Rick Wall, MS 1981 - I am living in Houston now and recently retired after thirty-four years in the oil industry. I stay in touch with a few USF alumni, namely Schro, Doug Parker, Greg Brooks, Steve Walker, Steve Sydlik, and Gary Hayward. I haven’t been to St Pete for a few years, but now that I have less structure to my life, hopefully I will get back there for another visit.

Tom Cuba, PhD 1984 - Reinventing Tom Cuba: In July of 2014, Dr. Thomas R. Cuba, Ph.D. (me), a successional ecologist and business owner, closed the shop and put the dust cover on the microscope for the last time. Eleven months later, Sebastian Roberts (AKA Tom Cuba, Author), is emerging. As of June 1st, 2015, I’ve written six books, several poems, and multiple essays. Three other manuscripts are in preparation. Welcome to the new me.

David Mearns, MS 1986 - Director of Bluewater Discoveries, West Sussex, UK. Don’t know if you’ve heard about the MUSAHI search (world’s largest battleship built by the Japanese). I’m in the Sibuyan Sea filming the wreck, which we located last week. I think you’d be impressed with the bathy map we created of a volcanic ridge that dominates the area, which was needed in advance of the AUV search with SSS. Paul G. Allen and his research team broadcasted a live-stream tour of the wreckage of the Japanese battleship MUSASHI, one of the most renowned and technologically advanced battleships in history. The event took place in March 2015 with David Mearns providing expert commentary on the wreck.

Dr. Lynn Leonard, PhD 1996 - Chair, Dept. of Geography and Geology, Dept. Physics and Physical Oceanog-raphy, University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Nate Wood, MS, 1996 - “Speaking of volcanoes, I’m off to Chile on Saturday for ten days on a USAID delega-tion to look at the Chilean volcano monitoring system and preparedness/outreach efforts”. Nate works for the USGS and lives in Portland Oregon.

Steve Goodbred, MS, 2004 - Steve has just been promoted to Full Professor at Vanderbilt University and is Chair of the Department of Geology. He got his PhD at VIMS.

Rebekah Duncan Baker, MS 2008 - Was promoted to Assistant Editor of the Journal of Foraminiferal Research in April 2014. This is an international journal published quarterly by the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research. Rebekah lives in Cambridge, England, with her husband and two sons.

Kristine De Long, PhD, 2008 - My news is that I have passed my tenure review and will be promoted to As-sociate Professor at LSU in August. Additionally, I received the Louisiana State University Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award for 2014, a new award by the LSU foundation. This award recognizes faculty at the rank of assistant professor who have outstanding records of scholarship and published research. Any full-time faculty member at the rank of assistant professor is eligible for this award. I will be spending my first sabbatical at the Earth Science Observatory of Singapore as a visiting scholar in March 2016 and I am looking forward to it. I am doing fine and have 3 Ph.D. students currently working on projects in the Tropical Atlantic.


Connect with USF College of Marine Science

University of South Florida, College of Marine Science140 7th Avenue SouthSt. Petersburg, FL 33701-5016Phone: 727-553-1130

Giving - marine.usf.edu/about-cms/givingWeb - marine.usf.eduFacebook - facebook.com/USFMarineScience Twitter - @USFCMSYouTube - youtube.com/USFMarineScience

Documents

USFCMS Rising Tides, v4 - Summer 2015