Sydney P
- Research Program Mentor
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Expertise
Marine microbiology, phytoplankton ecology and physiology, oceanography, marine environmental issues
Project ideas
Exploring marine microbe protein trends in the global ocean
In this project, you will learn how marine microbes accomplish tasks with proteins such as metabolizing. Then you will use online databases to see how many and which microbes use a particular protein you are interested in, where they are using this protein, and which environmental factors affect abundance of this protein. For example, if temperature or light affect the abundance of a particular protein, this may mean there could be changes in how microbes use this protein in the future due to climate change.
What triggers phytoplankton blooms off the Southern California coast?
In this project, you will learn what environmental conditions stimulate microscopic algae (aka phytoplankton) blooms off the coast of Southern California. Specifically, you will search through publicly available datasets of environmental physical, chemical, and biological data (such as temperature, nutrient concentrations, algae abundance) collected by scientists and use statistics to identify factors affecting phytoplankton blooms. Data could be presented and discussed in a conference poster or journal publication.