Student Highlights/Achievements

2022-2023 TAMUCC LSAMP Student Highlights

Emily Cano was a TAMU-CC LSAMP undergraduate research scholar who graduated in Spring 2023 with honors with a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology and a minor concentration in Environmental Science (3.97 GPA). Emily is also a NOAA Center for Coastal and Marine Ecosystems’ scholar. Emily’s research focused on an unusual dolphin behavior observed in Port Aransas- orienting against the current- and explored if the behavior could be a novel foraging tactic for dolphins. Emily will be a co-author on a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic and has presented her research at four conferences (SACNAS, TSM, SEAMAMMS, and TAMU-PATHWAYS).

Ignacio Rueda is an undergraduate of TAMU-CC LSAMP program. Ignacio has completed numerous research opportunities outside the classroom. In Spring 2022, Ignacio took part in an NSF-funded research vessel aboard the RV Langseth to collect multichannel seismic data and gain a broader understanding of oceanographic systems. In addition, Ignacio also had the opportunity to conduct research in an NSF-funded LSAMP program in Belize aimed at exposing students to in-depth scientific real-world research of the Mesoamerican coral reef ecosystems in southern Belize, from ridges to reefs. Recently, Ignacio also conducted a month-long research opportunity at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology to conduct ocean acidification experimentation of corals within Oahu. Since finishing these research ventures, Ignacio has disseminated the findings in Belize at two conferences, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). He will be giving an oral presentation on the research results conducted at HIMB in early Spring 2023 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference. He looks to continue advancing in his academic career and communicating about coral reef ecology with the public.

Faith Beall was a TAMU-CC LSAMP undergraduate research scholar who graduated in Fall 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Physics under the Texas Physics Consortium’s Joint Bachelor of Science program.  Faith’s research built a CosmicWatch muon detector and used it to observe cosmic ray generated muons.  In Fall 2022, Faith presented her work at the Fall meeting of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society and at the SACNAS conference in Puerto Rico.  Faith is currently working in an internship at Fermilab under the SULI program, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in physics afterward. During this project, Faith had to learn the theory behind cosmic ray generated muons and how a silicon photomultiplier works, electronics parts sourcing and fabrication including surface-mount soldering, troubleshooting with a digital oscilloscope, and some C++ programming for the Arduino microcontroller at the center of the project.  The result is two portable USB-powered working CosmicWatch muon detectors which can be used independently or together for coincidence measurements for directional sensitivity.  More recently, we made a new measurement with the CosmicWatch detector, gathering data to observe the lifetime of slow muons.  This comes from a somewhat rare event where a cosmic muon collides inside the detector and slows to non-relativistic speed.  At that point, the muon’s 2.2 microsecond lifetime is measured the same by the muon and in the lab, so the muon decays while still in the detector.  This is observed as a double peak in the detector signal.  Using a digital oscilloscope to gather data (instead of the Arduino), we began gathering data to demonstrate that this is indeed what is being measured.

Research from one of our alumni LSAMP scholars: Gabriella Herrera

Dr. Keisha Bahr and Gabriella Herrera at the Texas State Aquarium.

Kimberly Lopez shows Salena Thornton how to run a calibration trial on Vicon Nexus. Once finished with the calibration trial, they are able to set up a skeleton model on Nexus and download data onto MATLAB to measure forces and angles. 

Dr. Sparks and Cher Sintos worked on research in their lab.

Research from one of our alumni LSAMP Scholars: Kaiya Shealy