I am a second-year undergraduate at URI studying Marine Biology and Math. I joined the lab in Spring 2026 and worked over the summer as part of a URI fellowship.
What made you decide to go into marine science?
I only considered marine science as something I could go into once I started looking into colleges my sophomore year of high school, and the more I thought about it, the more curious I became about the ecosystems that exist in the deep sea. They’re so wildly different and alien from anything we know on the surface, and I want to spend my life understanding how they work.
What is the focus of your research/work? What do you think is the most important takeaway from your research?
I process and align the data collected by our benthic landers and annotate image data to assist in work analyzing the biodiversity in deep-sea reefs. I also analyze the environmental variables from that data, such as temperature and oxygen levels, to understand the variability between different sites, and to detect seasonality.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve done through your work?
The coolest thing I’ve done through my work is getting to work on the benthic lander. It has allowed me to understand the scale of work and complexity of engineering that goes into our ability to understand deep sea ecosystems. Before, I never really realized just how much thought and detail is required to make sure our landers don’t corrode, or so that they are actually able to come back up to the surface.
What is one fun fact about you?
One fun fact about me is that I have a pet snake named Mouse!
If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?
I don’t have a car and have to take the bus to work, so if I had a superpower, it would be to teleport, so I don’t have to rely on inconsistent bus schedules. I also think it would be fun, and I’d get to visit a lot of cool places.