Graduate students

Chantel Banus

Chantel Banus: Exploring consumer acceptance of seaweed products

Chantel Banus, second-year master’s student in human nutrition at the University of Maine, is working to determine the factors that influence consumer purchase of seaweed products in the United States. Banus is conducting a survey to see what consumers are looking for in seaweed products and what influences their decision to purchase them. She wants […]

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Antarctica Pollution

Climate scientists: Australian uranium mining pollutes Antarctic

Uranium mining in Australia is polluting the Antarctic, about 6,000 nautical miles away. University of Maine climate scientists made the discovery during the first high-resolution continuous examination of a northern Antarctic Peninsula ice core. Ice core data reveal a significant increase in uranium concentration that coincides with open pit mining in the Southern Hemisphere, most […]

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Kimberley Rain Miner

Emerging environmental leader earns prestigious Switzer Fellowship

Kimberley Rain Miner, Ph.D. candidate in Earth and climate sciences at the University of Maine, was recently selected as a Switzer Environmental Fellow by the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. This year, the Switzer Foundation awarded 20 fellowships of $15,000 each for emerging environmental leaders who are pursuing graduate degrees and are dedicated to positive […]

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NSF microscope

Three more UMaine students earn prestigious NSF graduate fellowships

Three University of Maine graduate students have received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which recognizes outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The three fellows awarded in 2016 — incoming students Anna McGinn and William Kochtitzky in the Climate Change Institute and School of Earth and Climate Sciences, respectively, […]

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Chen lab boat ocean marine

UMaine graduate students help inform sustainable ocean management practices

Nineteen graduate students in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine are helping ensure that European fisheries sustainably utilize ocean resources. The students participated in 20 stock assessment student reviews for European fisheries in early June through the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). ICES is the oldest intergovernmental […]

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Saltmarsh Sparrow

Olsen recommends local habitat protection to save Saltmarsh Sparrows

When Laura Garey wades into tidal marshes at sunrise to survey Saltmarsh Sparrows, the University of Maine graduate student also spies deflated balloons, trash and pollutants. These reservoirs at the intersection of land and sea also are increasingly being damaged by coastal development, sea-level rise and more frequent storm surges. All of which makes it […]

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Skylar Bayer

Bayer produces event where stories, science collide in Bangor

Stephen Colbert introduced millions to Skylar Bayer’s marine reproductive ecology research. When “The Colbert Report” aired a mock crime story about missing scallop gonads and a lonely lady scientist performing experiments, the audience laughed while it learned. That funny, true, personal stories can both inform and entertain resonates with Bayer, a doctoral candidate based at […]

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wood frog

Researchers study waistband for attaching radio transmitters to amphibians

In an attempt to improve how amphibians are monitored, University of Maine researchers evaluated a waistband for attaching external radio transmitters to frogs and toads. Radio telemetry provides fine-scale temporal and spatial information about an animal’s movements and habitat use; however, its use for tracking amphibians has been restricted by transmitter mass and lack of […]

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baby lobster

And the People’s Choice winner is … Jesica Waller

For some, a picture is worth a thousand words. For Jesica Waller, it’s worth $500, the opportunity to introduce people to her research through beautiful art and to be published in “Popular Science” magazine. Her photograph of a 3-week-old American lobster won the People’s Choice Award and its accompanying cash prize in the Vizzies, a […]

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Alaska fjord

UMaine marine science students dive deep in Alaskan fjords

Two marine science students at the University of Maine started off 2016 a little differently than they had previous years. For five days, Ashley Rossin and Elise Hartill collected red tree corals, Primnoa pacifica, from the Tracy Arm Fjord — a narrow, deep inlet of the sea nestled between high cliffs — located just south […]

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