Good Fellows: URI graduate students receive laurels, but no rest 

Five URI graduate students are bringing science out of the laboratory to deal with issues of human health, environmental well being, fisheries resources, and economic problems.

Three of those students have hit the road—to Washington, D.C.—to work on coastal issues in the federal government, as part of a group of 33 Dean John A. Knauss Fellows for 2003, chosen from the most promising graduate students in the nation interested in coastal and marine policy.

Carli Bertrand, a master’s degree candidate in marine affairs, is "ecstatic" to be working for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, and Fisheries. Bertrand may have gained some global perspective on oceans as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, and later as an international education consultant for the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program. "As a Peace Corps volunteer, in addition to my responsibilities as an environmental educator, I helped West African fishers pull their nets onto shore and brought Senegalese school children to the coast for their first taste of the salty Atlantic," Bertrand says.

Sunshine Menezes, a Ph.D. candidate in biological oceanography, works for Congressman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who serves on the House Resources Committee’s Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans Subcommittee. "I get to work on a broad range of environmental issues, including air and water quality and global change, in addition to ocean issues," Men-ezes says. Menezes, who has studied coral physiology in the Florida Keys, barrier beach biology on the New Jersey shore, and phytoplankton ecology at URI, began life as an activist, rather than a scientist. She gained her interest in environmental issues from her parents, both environmental activists, who practiced sustainable living and grew their own food. "The storybook character I most admired was Laura Ingalls Wilder, because I could actually relate to her life," Menezes says. As a teenager, she founded an activist group for teens, but eventually realized that "there are at least two sides to each story," and decided the best contribution she could make would be to study science.

Ramesh Baskaran, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental and natural resource economics, works in the Fisheries Statistics and Economics Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Office of Science and Technology. Baskaran, who received his bachelor of science degree and his master of business administration degree from the University of Putra, Malaysia, says, "Living and working in a peninsular state as I have, one cannot escape the impacts to fisheries associated with general mismanagement of the resource." Baskaran also worked for the finance ministry for the government of Malaysia, where, he says, he "encountered many of the problems and failures government agencies face in the implementation of public policies." 

For the first time since the fellowship’s inception in 1995, two URI graduate students have also been chosen as National Sea Grant Industry Fellows. The Industry Fellowship provides, in cooperation with specific companies, support for graduate students who are pursuing research and development projects of interest to a particular industry/company. Coincidentally, both of the students’ projects are designed to reduce bacterial threats to human health.

Kenneth La Valley, a Ph.D. student in environmental science and director of quality assurance at Spinney Creek Shellfish, Inc., in Maine, received his fellowship to work with Spinney Creek Shellfish to address a deadly bacterial contamination found in aquacultured shellfish. Each year, approximately 20 people die from septicemia (blood poisoning) brought on by consumption of raw shellfish, particularly oysters, that are contaminated with the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus. The molluscan shellfish industry has explored different approaches to dealing with this problem, including educational campaigns for at-risk populations, quick freezing, and ionizing radiation, but each has had its drawbacks, ranging from exorbitant costs to ineffectiveness and death of the oyster. La Valley’s project will examine relaying, which involves transferring shellfish from restricted areas to open areas for natural biological cleansing and depuration, which involves holding shellfish in water disinfected with ultraviolet light for 44 hours, as means to reduce the Vibrio pathogen. LaValley’s ultimate goal is to commercialize a depuration/relay-based Vibrio reduction process. LaValley’s major professors are Michael Rice, professor, and Marta Gómez-Chiarri, assistant professor, both of the URI fisheries, animal, and veterinary science department.

Heather Saffert, a Ph.D. student in biological oceanography, received an Industry Fellowship to work with SubChem Systems, Inc., of Jamestown, R.I., to help develop and test an automated device, BioAnalyzer, to detect fecal contamination in marine waters. Current testing methods, involving physical collection of water samples for testing, require personnel and can involve lengthy waits (up to four days) for data, which results in either a delayed closure of recreational waters when a potential health hazard exists, or a prolonged closure after a problem has dissipated. An automated device could produce near real-time results at a fraction of the cost of physical sampling. Saffert hopes her work will help improve public health, and says, "This fellowship gives me the chance to follow in the footsteps of previous URI researchers who became national leaders in improving microbial water quality and monitoring programs." Saffert’s major professor is David Smith, URI assistant professor of oceanography. 

—Monica Allard Cox