Author: jcthrash

Emily wins the Socolofsky Award

Posted on by jcthrash

Congratulations Emily on four years of hard work that have been recognized with the Socolofsky Award for undergraduate microbiology research. Some more on the award from the LSU Biological Sciences Undergraduate Student Awards website:

“The recipient shall be a Senior and shall be a full-time student engaged in a research project with one of the faculty members who is conducting microbiological research. This award recognizes significant research accomplishments, particularly presentations at scientific meetings or co-authorship of journal manuscripts.”

Emily is the second Thrash Lab undergraduate to receive this award. Her work on the OM252 clade (LSUCC0096) will be the subject of her Honors Thesis and is set to be a first authorship paper. Great work Emily! We’re so lucky to have you in the lab!

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Mike wins McDaniel Travel Award to attend #ISME17

Posted on by jcthrash

Congratulations to Mike on winning the LSU Biological Sciences McDaniel Travel Award! 1000 clams goes a long way! Some notes on this memorial award, from the LSU Graduate Student Awards website:

“The McDaniel Travel Award is a competitive award that memoralizes Michael McDaniel, a promising graduate student who  died tragically in the second year of his PhD program.  Established by his family and given semi-annually the award funds travel expenses for graduate students to attend national or international meetings in the Biological Sciences and to present a paper or poster on the graduate research of the students.”

Mike will use this prestigious award to help him present at #ISME17 in Leipzig, Germany.

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Thrash Lab presentations at Ocean Sciences

Posted on by jcthrash

We’re going to Ocean Sciences in Portland next week. Both Celeste and Mike have posters on Thursday, February 15th from 1600-1800:

MM44A-1512: The Ecology, Physiology, and Genomic Analysis of Novel SAR11 Isolates

MM44A-1513: Cultivation, genomics, and characterization of the first isolate from the freshwater SAR11 clade LD12

Session MM44A: Functional, Ecological, and Evolutionary Implications of Microdiversity and Intraspecific Variability in Aquatic Microorganisms I.

 

Diving the Dead Zone

Posted on by jcthrash

Back in August, I accompanied Nancy Rabalais and LUMCON dive safety officer Ben Acker on a dive trip to station C6C. That location is an oil platform south of Terrebonne Bay with equipment for monitoring water conditions such as temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen. I’ve posted before about our work there exchanging equipment and taking samples. I’m involved with the LUMCON dive team through my continued collaboration with Nancy in researching seasonal hypoxia (a.k.a. the Dead Zone) in the region. For example, see our most recent paper on dead zone microbiology. The purpose of this particular trip was to show CBS News the heart of the Dead Zone. Nancy’s recent NOAA-sponsored hypoxia cruise (see Celeste’s trip report) revealed that this year’s zone of hypoxia was the largest ever, and it has attracted a lot of attention as a result. Below is the full-length GoPro footage of the dive, in three parts. A big chunk of the second and third parts are in blackness, at the bottom of the dive, where we searched, in vain, for a lost piece of equipment. But there is some beautiful footage of the rest of the water column if you scroll through the individual videos. A portion of this was included in the CBS News profile. UPDATE 10/4/17: Times-Picayune reporter Sara Sneath found this post and put together a cool summary and link for us at NOLA.com.

 

 

Thrash Lab Ph.D. position in aquatic microbiology

Posted on by jcthrash

We’re looking for students interested in pursuing Ph.D. research on one of a variety of topics in marine and estuarine microbiology. Possible projects involve comparative genomics, integrative (meta)genomics and physiology, synthetic ecology, integrated transcriptomics and metabolomics, high-throughput cultivation, and host-phage interactions. Both basic and applied research avenues are available, and students will have the ability to customize their project based on their interests, including field work/ship time if desired. LSU hosts an advanced high-performance computing environment (http://hpc.lsu.edu), the Socolofsky Microscopy Center, and is an excellent institution for interdisciplinary research at the boundaries of microbiology, marine science, computer science, chemistry, and engineering.

The ideal student will have a positive, solution-minded attitude, be enthusiastic about learning, be kind and hard working, will enjoy pursing research in a collaborative environment, and meet the minimum admissions requirements for LSU. We are currently accepting students for Fall 2018. To be considered for a position, please first send a CV and a brief description of research interests to thrashc@lsu.edu.

The Dead Zone on CBS News

Posted on by jcthrash

After the research cruise in which Celeste helped Nancy Rabalais and her team measure the largest Dead Zone yet, news agencies are taking notice. Yesterday I dove with Nancy and Ben Acker of LUMCON at a site in the heart of the Dead Zone, station C6C (featured in many previous posts). Nancy maintains multiple SONDEs on a leg of the oil platform to measure dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, and other important parameters. Our purpose yesterday was to search for a SONDE lost on a previous dive and introduce the CBS News team to the region of hypoxia. We also wound up providing footage for the CBS News crew to use in their segment that you can watch HERE. I shot the underwater footage. We’ll be posting the full video later. Here are some shots from the R/V Acadiana yesterday.

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Station C6C under stormy skies.
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Captain Carl and CBS News Producer Warren Serink look on as we approach C6C.
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Through a condensation-laden window, you can just see Nancy interviewing with Jeff Glor on the left while cameraman Max Stacy gets additional footage.
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On the drive out, rain on the western horizon.