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By Lisa White, STEMSEAS Instructor
STEMSEAS is excited to be partnering with the Ocean Education Trust (OET) and their ship, E/V Nautilus, to bring 8 eager undergraduates on a North Pacific mapping expedition. The instructional team is Lisa White from the UC Museum of Paleontology, Jeanette Pirlo from CSU Stanislaus, and graduate student Lauren Haygood from Oklahoma State University. After setting sail from Honolulu on June 15, the group is currently about 1000 miles NE of the Hawaiian Island mapping parts of the seafloor less well known. The bathymetric data collected during the 9 day transit to Sidney, British Columbia will be used to fill in gaps in seabed mapping within and beyond the US Exclusive Economic Zone.
The participating students’ profiles are on the Nautilus Live Expedition NA 150 website and they are Kyra Copp (DePauw University), Isabel Flores (UC San Diego), Leland Jones (Morehouse College), Jacqueline Leung (Vanderbilt University), Dylan Metcalfe (Whatcomm Community College), Gabriella Piper (University of Guam), Piper Priddy (University of Delaware), and Skyy Sumlin (University of Illinois). The group stayed busy during the first few days familiarizing themselves with the vessel and getting settled into a daily routine. They look forward to upcoming ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship calls with other groups, and the chance to learn science communication techniques from OET Education Program Coordinator Kelly Guarino and OET Science Communication Fellow, Maynard Okereke, better known as the Hip Hop MD.
