It was a busy summer spent finishing up the field and lab portions of my last dissertation chapter! I collected cores from the nearby Goleta Slough and members of the SBC LTER collected cores from nearby kelp forests for use in my sediment bioreactor setup. If you're interested in learning more about my findings, I'll be presenting the results of this project at the upcoming 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting.

I am excited to announce that my application for emergency funding from the UCSB Associated Students Coastal Fund was recently approved. I will be using this grant to study the effects of the sediment deposited on Goleta Beach following the Montecito debris flow in January. Stay tuned for updates on the project, which will involve several collaborators and a fantastic team of undergraduates! If you'd like to learn more about the disposal of debris or current water quality at Goleta Beach, follow the links below.

This summer, I've been fortunate to have two excellent undergraduate research assistants helping with my field and laboratory work.

Chloe Smith is a rising 4th year at Oregon Institute of Technology and is pursuing her Bachelors in Environmental Science. She was a SBC LTER National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant recipient, and she spent the summer researching the effects of low pH (acidified) water on marine sediment processes.

Katherine Le is a rising 3rd year here at UCSB, and she has been helping with hydrology and nutrient cycling research in the Melack lab.  She also works in the Reed lab assisting with data processing and analysis.

Over the past few months, both women have been hard at work learning how to sample sediments for use in our bioreactors and how to process water samples for ammonium concentrations using a fluorometric method. They'll be traveling to various conferences in the coming months to present their work, so be sure to check back for updates about their findings!