Summer internships are available through Princeton University to work at BIOS. Interns, who must be Princeton students, will work through a collaborative agreement with a faculty member from Princeton and a faculty member from BIOS.
When considering project ideas, students should keep in mind the possibility that the project conducted during this internship period could provide the basis for a junior paper and senior thesis. Potential project areas include, but are not limited to:
- oceanography and atmospheric sciences
- marine biology and ecology
- microbial ecology, marine genomics and ecotoxicology
- natural hazard risk prediction
- instrumentation for environmental monitoring.
EEB and Geo majors who are rising sophomores, juniors or seniors should:
- Identify a BIOS faculty member from among those that have expressed a willingness to participate in this program (see list below for faculty names and possible projects). For more information on BIOS faculty, please visit the BIOS Faculty Profiles.
- Provide the following information to Dr. Gerry Plumley at Gerry.Plumley-at-bios.edu
and Daniel Sigman at sigman@princeton.edu:
- A half-page description of your interests and background relevant to the internship.
- A short paragraph on why you want to participate in the internship (to the extent possible, be sure to list specific BIOS and Princeton faculty that you would be interested in working with and specific projects).
- Your year (e.g., rising junior), major or expected major, and courses taken that are directly related to the internship.
- A letter of reference from one Princeton faculty (a short email from the faculty member to Gerry Plumley is sufficient).
For more information on this internship program, or for advice on finding an advisor at BIOS or Princeton, please contact Dr. Gerry Plumley or Dr. Daniel Sigman.
The internship program is administered by PEI and will cover the cost of room, board and laboratory fees as well as a small weekly stipend. Internships are of 10-12 weeks duration; the exact timing of each internship will be determined by mutual agreement between each student and his/her BIOS faculty mentor and by availability of dormitory space at BIOS.
The deadline for applications is February 28, 2008, with priority given to early applicants. Decisions will be made by March 15, 2008.
Participating BIOS Faculty and Possible Research Areas:
Nick Bates - Dr. Bates' primary interest is studying the oceanic carbon cycle with a view towards better understanding global climate change. He is involved in many projects, including the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study, studying, for example: carbon and nitrogen cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean, Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean; the influence of mesoscale ocean eddies and winter mixing (with Dr. Michael Lomas) on biogeochemical cycles; global exchange of carbon dioxide between the ocean and atmosphere by deploying CO2 sensors on research and commercial ships; the impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 and future ocean acidification on coral reef calcification and calcifying plankton (e.g., coccolithophores); dimethylsulphide (DMS) cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean; and improving technologies for the deployment of new chemical and biological sensors for ocean moorings.
Tony Knap - Dr. Knap is the President and Director of BIOS. His expertise is environmental science and he specializes in organic geochemistry and long-range transport and deposition of chemicals in the oceans. He serves with several international organizations and has been chairman of the Health of the Ocean Committee for the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). He is co-chair of the Coastal Ocean Observing Panel for GOOS. Dr. Knap is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and one book.
Dr. Knap is also director of the Risk Prediction Initiative (RPI). RPI is an innovative science-business partnership based at BIOS that helps its sponsors better understand, assess and manage climate-related risks. The research conducted by RPI scientists must be relevant to RPI sponsor's business interests and therefore most of the research concerns natural hazards that cause the largest losses to our sponsors: landfalling tropical cyclones, European storms, and earthquakes. The research must also be of the highest scientific quality. As a result, research results are routinely published in prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals.
A Princeton intern will be accepted into the RPI program to work with one of the international catastrophe reinsurers based in Bermuda. The specific project will most likely involve the use of proprietary catastrophe risk models, the estimation of probable losses to a company's portfolio as a result of an extreme events such as landfalling hurricanes, earthquakes, or European wind storms. Preference will be given to interns with a strong background in physical sciences and mathematics.
Ross Jones - Dr. Jones leads BIOS's Marine Environmental Program. His major research theme is the biology of the coral-algal symbiosis, and understanding and quantifying how this relationship changes during conditions of altered environmental conditions, both natural and anthropogenic. This encompasses coral physiology, ecotoxicology and stress assessment, studies on the nature and cause of coral bleaching and coral disease, biomarker development, and environmental monitoring.
Michael Lomas - Dr. Lomas' research interests include coupled oceanic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, methods of measuring oceanic new production, and phytoplankton community structure and its relationship with nutrient cycling in the ocean. Possible internship research topics include:
- Dissolved organic phosphorus utilization in the Sargasso Sea: Species-specific comparisons
- Relationships between phytoplankton community structure and elemental cycling in the Sargasso Sea: To what extent do phytoplankton really obey the Redfield Ratio?
- Development of physiological assay applications for flow cytometry.
Andrew Peters - Dr. Peters supervises the BIOS Environmental Quality Program which focuses on environmental issues from the perspective of a highly developed and densely populated small island nation. His current research interests are: assessment of local air, water and soil quality; and long-range atmospheric transport of contaminants. Projects suitable for Princeton Interns include.
- Investigation and assessment of the quality of roof harvested water in Bermuda;
- Modeling and risk assessment of local air pollutant emissions;
- Application of solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) for passive sampling of persistent organic pollutants in the near-shore waters of Bermuda.
Gerry Plumley - Dr. Plumley's laboratory studies proteomics and genomics of marine and freshwater microorganisms, primarily bacteria and algae. They are currently focused on genetic factors involved in two projects available for involvement by interns:
- The synthesis of saxitoxin, one of the toxic compounds produced by marine and freshwater algae during certain red tide events
- Identification of the molecular signals employed by marine bacteria for cell-cell communications.
- Interns will be provided opportunities to develop their skills in molecular techniques, such as PCR and DNA cloning/sequencing, as well as to perform more complex experiments that may involve use of transposon mutagenesis and/or complementation assays. As appropriate, analytical techniques such as HPLC, SDS-PAGE and PFGE will be utilized to identify or characterize small chemical compounds, proteins and/or DNA.
Samantha de Putron - Dr. de Putron is a benthic ecologist with a focus on the ecology, biology and vulnerability of coral reef and other near-shore subtropical and tropical ecosystems. Current research areas include: an assessment of variability in coral larval settlement success across Bermuda's different reef zones; lunar periodicity to coral larval release; coral gamete, larval and juvenile coral development; and coral condition monitoring to determine disease and bleaching susceptibility. Projects suitable for Princeton Interns that can be completed in the summer time frame include:
- Fecundity, gametogenesis, and larval release or spawning of certain coral species
- The effect of global climate change (increased temperature and ocean acidification) on coral reproduction, larval settlement, and juvenile development and growth
