2026 MBARI Summer Intern Symposium

Presentations will be 15 minutes each and each presentation will start on time.

0830-0915 breakfast for interns 
0915-0930 Introduction 
0930-0945Isabelle SantiagoLighting up the Ocean: Cloning, expression, and characterization of comb jelly photoproteins
0945-1000Eli Mally
Contrasting coastal polynya and open ocean phytoplankton productivity with SOCCOM BGC-Argo Float data: A Ross Sea case study
1000-1015Daniel SolanoVARS-ML AutoLabel: A VARS-Integrated Vector Embedding Classification Pipeline with Hierarchical Taxonomic Evaluation
1015-1030Alessandro Puglisi
GULP3R: Gaussian Underwater spLatting with semantic Perception for 3D Reconstruction.
Creating Labeled 3D Maps from Camera Images.
1030-1045 BREAK 
1045-1100Rudra GaikwadFrom Prototype to Platform: Making Better Engineering Decisions Through Testing
1100-1115Cate O’BryonConnecting the Surface to the Deep: Tracking Sinking Particle Fluxes Through a Machine Learning Approach in the California Current
1115-1130Landon NoyesCharacterization of Lithium Cells for Energy Harvesting Applications
1130-1300LUNCH 
1300-1315Sarah WilliamsNothing to See Here: Background Data and False Positives in UAV Imagery Object Detection
1315-1330Ariel RaizmanUnsupervised Machine Learning to Track Humpback Whale Song Structure in the North Pacific
1330-1345Izzy Farrar Deep-sea organic falls in the Oxygen Minimum Zone: Patterns of invertebrate diversity
1345-1415BREAK 
1415-1430Meg SiwakPhysical Controls on Phytoplankton Distribution in the Galápagos Archipelago
1430-1445Daniel SamboldFathomNet Update: Monolith to Modular
1445-1500Daira MelendezBeyond Metabarcoding: Exploring Nuclear Marker Recovery from Environmental DNA Using Long-Read Sequencing
Date

August 12, 2026

Time

9 AM to 3 PM PDT

Location

MBARI
7700 Sandholdt Road
Moss Landing, CA 95039

zoom webinar registration

This symposium will be offered in a hybrid format so those that wish to attend online can register at this zoom link