New Faces This Summer at Skidaway Institute - Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

With the beginning of summer, we have an influx of new people on campus.

A young person with short brown hair and glasses smiles outdoors, wearing a blue striped shirt and a necklace. Sunlight highlights their face, and green trees and grass are blurred in the background.

Alden Murphy is an intern in the Frischer Lab. She is a senior at the University of Georgia majoring in biology with a genetics and mathematics minor. Alden grew up on Tybee Island and says she has always been interested in biology and ecology. She enjoys making art, especially crochet and pottery. She plans to attend graduate school to study in an undecided scientific field.

“I want to help perform research on anthropogenic effects on the environment and make changes to protect the earth,” she said.

A young woman with long blonde hair smiles at the camera while standing outdoors in bright sunlight, wearing a white top. Green trees and grass appear blurred in the background. Catherine Hallman is an intern in the Harvey Lab after finishing her freshman year at Centre College in Danville, KY. She is pursuing a double major in biology and French with hopes of continuing to graduate school for marine science. Catherine and her sister both run cross country and track at Centre College. She enjoys reading, being with friends and family, traveling and being on the water.

A young woman with long blonde hair smiles outdoors. She is wearing a yellow sleeveless top and a necklace with a shell pendant. Sunlight highlights her face and hair, and green trees are blurred in the background. Liz Farmer is a fourth year environmental resource science major in the UGA College of Agriculture. She is working with Jay Brandes and Kun Ma this summer on their research with photo chemistry. She is from Douglasville, Ga.

“Even though I lived far from the coast I have always loved learning about and being around the ocean,” she said. “I hope to learn more about marine sciences and research this summer and am happy to be here at Skidaway!”

A person with curly dark hair tied back is smiling outdoors in bright sunlight. They are wearing a yellow T-shirt with a torn collar, and green grass and trees are visible in the background. Sadneya Ghag is a UGA student interning in the Savidge Lab. She is a biology major with emphasis on marine science with a minor in Russian. Last summer, Sadneya conducted research on cassiopeas (upside down jellyfish) in the Florida Keys. Later that summer, she did another research study in the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve where she took ground truth elevations in nine of the habitats there. Sadneya is originally from Mumbai, India.

A young person with light brown hair pulled back and wearing a white shirt and a silver necklace stands outdoors, smiling softly, with a grassy area and trees in the background. Izzy Johnson is a sophomore at Haverford College interning in the Harvey Lab. Her home is Mount Kisco, N.Y. Izzy is a biology major with a chemistry minor. She also plays varsity squash at Haverford.

A young woman with light skin and straight blond hair smiles outdoors. She is wearing a black T-shirt, and the background shows green grass, trees, and sunlight.

Megan Tomamichel is a first year Ph.D. student in the Interdisciplinary Disease Ecology Across Scales program at the Odum School of Ecology at UGA. She will be spending the summer working with Jeb Byers and Marc Frisher on black gill in shrimp. “I am broadly interested in understanding principles of aquatic disease ecology, how host population cycles and the environment influence disease cycles and vise versa, and developing management practices to reduce the impacts of aquatic disease on both humans and animals,” she said.

A woman with brown hair and glasses smiles at the camera outdoors. She is wearing a blue top, a necklace with a heart pendant, and has a brown strap over her shoulder. The background is grassy and sunlit. Julie Blaze is a first year Ph.D. student in ecology at UGA . She works in Jeb Byers’ lab. This summer she is at Skidaway studying sublethal predation and regeneration in marine invertebrates on mudflats.