Here are some brief biographies and links to student websites from the Geological Oceanography Lab.
Eric Niven
Bryan Dieter
Charles Endris
cendris@mlml.calstate.edu
Three
weeks after graduating from Hamilton College in upstate NY in May 1998,
I shipped out to Australia with the Ocean Drilling Program. For the
next three years I spent ten, 2-month cruises on the 472 ft. drill ship,
JOIDES Resolution, as a Marine Lab Specialist. My Bachelor's degree
in geology well prepared me for the geological oceanography focus of
many of the cruises on the JOIDES. I spent much of my time on the high
seas assisting scientists in the paleomagnetism lab, as well as working
with a team of other technicians to process and curate hundreds of drilled
deep-sea cores.
I eventually chose to leave the isolated sea-life and took up work as
a teacher and First Mate with the non-for-profit Living Classrooms Foundation.
Onboard an historic 69 ft. wooden Skipjack sailboat, I would assist
the captain in sailing the boat while teaching children about the ecology
and history of the Chesapeake Bay. The serious degradation of wetland
habitats and water quality in the bay prompted me to focus on a career
path of trying to restore balance to these vital ecosystems. At Moss
Landing, I hope to use my geology background to study the effects of
rapid erosion on the ecological environments in the Elkhorn Slough.
I
graduated from Saint Stephen University in Hungary with a degree in
environmental protection and landscape management. My career in the
marine sciences started in 1997 when I completed a summer internship
with the Sea Turtle Program at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.
I then spent the academic year of 2000/2001 at the University of Gent
in Belgium studying marine sciences, GIS techniques and remote sensing.
I wrote my senior thesis there, which described the "Macrobenthic
trophic structure and species interactions within a future marine protected
area (Belgian Coastal Banks)". My interests then were primarily
ecological. Recently, I have worked on a project funded by Sea Grant
at the Center for Habitat Studies characterizing rockfish habitats.
I have also helped out at the benthic lab sorting infauna samples collected
from the Monterey Canyon.
