Fellowship Experiences

This is the second of two dispatches by Sophie Caradine-Taber, who joined an Arctic research cruise through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program run by Maryland Sea Grant.  |  Today we encountered sea ice! There was talk that we might not see much sea ice this year, because sea ice melt has been high in recent years, so I am glad to see it. The ice floes are small but large enough to support large marine mammals, and today we saw seven walruses!

This is the first dispatch by Sophie Caradine-Taber, who joined a research cruise through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program run by Maryland Sea Grant.  |  I am spending this summer pursuing an unusual opportunity: spending two weeks aboard a research ship helping with research in the Arctic!

When I introduce myself as an environmental anthropologist, there’s often a pause followed by a look of confusion and then finally, “You’re a what?” 

Climate change is an accepted phenomenon throughout the scientific community, but the perspective of the general public can often be quite different. As a young researcher in the field of climate change, I often find myself in situations where climate change skeptics expect me to defend my research, which examines the effects of climate change on juvenile blue crabs.

My senior year as a biology undergraduate at Drexel University was marked by the opening of the new Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building. At its center stands a 22-foot wide, 80-foot tall biowall. It is a beautiful and symbiotic array of tropical plants and microbes that naturally purify the air. I didn’t know it then, but it was my first exposure to ecologically engineered systems.  Read more...