Meghan Powers is a doctoral candidate at University of California Santa Cruz, working in the Haddock lab. She is interested in the evolution of bioluminescence. She uses molecular techniques to obtain genetic information from deep-sea zooplankton including cephalopods, chaetognaths, and jellies.
On this cruise, there are quite a few collaborators working with the Haddock lab. I talked about the work of the Dunn lab on day three. Today, you will learn about Jamie Baldwin-Fergus’ work and hear from the Haddock lab’s summer intern, Alex Jaffe.
I think about my first research cruise often, and it weighed on my mind yesterday when I got a message that Jim Case, my mentor and academic parent, had passed away.
A group of collaborators from Brown University are on board this expedition. Casey Dunn’s lab investigates how evolution produced the diversity of life. On this expedition, they are focused on siphonophores, which are colonial cnidarians.
I have had the good fortune to participate in many expeditions with different groups over my 11 plus years at MBARI. I’ve been to sea with benthic ecologists, molecular biologists, geologists, chemists and they have all been amazing experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
oday we set sail at 11:00 a.m. The timing of the departure and return of each cruise on the research vessel Western Flyer depends on the tides.
Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.