Congratulations to our 2024 MEES Graduates!

Colin Vissering is a second year PhD student under the Environment and Society Foundation in the MEES program at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.   Under the advisement of Dr. Lisa Wainger at the Chesapeake Bay Laboratory, Colin’s doctoral research focuses on developing a set of tools and approaches that can be implemented at the local level (such as dynamic adaptive planning or AI tools) for decision-making in designing and implementing coastal resilience projects

Faith Taylor (‘21, M.S.) graduated with her Master’s in MEES from the University of Maryland, College Park. Under the advisement of Dr. Michael Paolisso, her thesis entitled: “Using an Inductive Grounded Theory Approach to Understand How Screening Tools and Case Studies Assess Environmental Injustices in Communities in the United States'' focused on using a comparative analysis to assess how environmental injustices are captured by current case studies and screening tools. Faith is currently a doctoral student in the School of the Environment at Yale University in the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative (JEDSI) program which examines the relationship between social inequalities, lived experiences, and environmental outcomes.

Congratulations to Jonas Miller, the recipient of the prestigious 2024 USM Board of Regents Student Excellence Scholarship for Academics, Scholarship and Research; an award given to only four graduate students across the USM system! Jonas Miller is a second year MEES  Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County advised by longtime MEES Faculty member, Dr. Yonathan Zohar.  Jonas has been conducting his doctoral research, at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET),  which focuses on enhancing sustainable land-based aquaculture of Atlantic salmon, an area in which Dr.  Zohar is a world leader.  The end goal is to promote a consistent supply of domestic salmon for consumers by generating populations of fish that spawn at staggered times throughout the year, triggered by different light and temperature conditions in land-based facilities. Prior to joining the MEES graduate program, Jonas brings a wealth of experience and training; Jonas earned his B.A. in Aquaculture & Fishery Technology at the University of Rhode Island in May 2014, making the Dean’s List for every semester he was enrolled at URI. Jonas had the opportunity to work part-time as an Aquaculture Specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) zebrafish research program. BCH utilizes the zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model for human health and disease and hosts up to 12,000 tanks across three aquaculture facilities making it one of the largest and most active fish research programs in the world. Dr. Christian Lawrence, Assistant Director of Research Operations at BCH immediately noted Jonas’ intellectual curiosity, motivation, and communication in a very challenging and technical position which can be both dynamic and routine, requiring the ability to perform independently while still operating within a team. Jonas’ duties included recirculating aquaculture system management, zooplankton culture, data collection, maintenance of ongoing experiments, assessing animal health, and trouble shooting. Upon graduating from URI, Jonas was awarded a scholarship to obtain his M.S. degree in Aquaculture from Kindai University in Osaka Japan and graduated in March 2020.  Dr. Lawrence notes the achievement of gaining admission to a graduate program at a highly selective Japanese university, while Jonas simply sees it as following his dream to study marine fish cultivation in Japanese aquaculture research. Jonas joined a team at Kindai University’s Aquaculture Research Institute (ARIKU) in Wakayma, Japan studying fish cultivation at the ARIKU Uragami Experiment Station. Uragami is a small rural fishing village that is a three hours drive away from Osaka and comprised of about roughly 400 people. Jonas recalls that he was the first and only American to reside in Uragami village, and the first American student at ARIKU. The practical (and intense) graduate school curriculum along with the experience gained in both laboratory and fish hatchery as well as in learning how to troubleshoot and problem solve many issues helped Jonas learn more about breeding, husbandry, disease prevention and feeding strategies of many marine fish native to the Wakayama prefecture. Jonas performed these duties all why learning to speak and write in Japanese as an adult, studying a highly technical subject in Japanese, and graduated with his Master’s in Aquaculture (2020). Dr. Amal Biswas, Associate Professor & Deputy Director at the Aquaculture Research Institute at Kindai University, who served as Jonas’ advisor, noted Jonas as an exceptional student, working as a team with the research staff and undergraduate students from Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia to complete research on the rearing of white trevally, a highly prized fish species in Japan of which only a tiny fraction of the catch is exported. Dr. Biswas also noted Jonas’ very keen ability to share his ideas with other researchers, while also being willing to explore some more ideas to contribute to the further development of sustainable aquaculture industry in both Japan and the United States. Since joining the MEES program, Jonas maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA, served as IMET’s GSA President, teaches weekly English classes to Chinese graduate students at IMET and has mentored high school students from South Carroll High School and Baltimore City College High volunteering at Dr. Zohar’s research group, providing instruction in aquaculture and molecular benchwork.   In the UMBC  article, Jonas sees the next step is to discover “new predictive biomarkers” and views the award as “an opportunity to propel [his] research to the next level”. We at the MEES Graduate program are proud of all of our exceptional scholars; Congratulations, Jonas, this is a well earned recognition for all your hard work! For more on Jonas, please click here.

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Congratulations to Jens Wira, the recipient of the distinguished 2024 USM Board of Regents Student Excellence Scholarship for Innovation and Creative Activity; an award given to only four graduate students across the USM system! Jens Wira is a fourth year MEES Ph.D. student working in the lab of Dr. Allen Place at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Jens doctoral research is focused on the molecular characterization of toxins from species like Amphidininium, Karlodinium and Karenia. He is also interested in using flavonoids to mitigate blooms of these species. Prior to joining the MEES program, Jens graduated (with honors) with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore (2019) (with honors), where, as part of the honors requirements, Jens completed a five month full time internship in the Toxins section of the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (later reorganized and now known as the Singapore Food Agency). Jens was responsible for testing food for bacterial, mycotoxins, and marine biotoxins which allowed him to practice and develop analytical chemistry techniques. In 2018, Jens was selected for a Marine Science Research Development Program at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore, where under the guidance of Dr. Allen Place, Jens studied dinoflagellate toxin production by Amphidium carterae, a species that sometimes causes toxic algal blooms. This experience proved invaluable, as midway through the internship at the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore, a bloom of Karlodinium dinoflagellates occurred in the sea surrounding Singapore, which put the laboratory on high alert in preparation, since no official method existed in the lab for the detection of karlotoxins. This stirred Jens curiosity and passion to study harmful algal blooms, and using the experience at the Place lab, Jens developed a screening method to identify potentially novel karlotoxins, as well as demonstrated just how much harmful algal bloom (HAG) management can be advanced. Jens undergraduate research project was entitled: “Polyketide Synthesis in Amphidium carterae under Different Growth Conditions.” After earning his Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from NUS, Jens joined the MEES graduate program in Fall 2020 and has garnered numerous awards as well as demonstrated exceptional academic achievements. Jens maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA, has earned an award for nearly every year he has been in the MEES Program: the prestigious University of Maryland Dean’s Fellowship (2020, 2021), 2021 MEES Colloquium Best Presentation (3rd place), 2022 MEES Colloquium Best Student Poster (2nd place), and in 2022 Jens was selected for the highly distinguished Ratcliffe Environmental Entrepreneurship Fellowship (REEF), 2023 MEES Colloquium Best Presentation (2nd place), 2023 MEES Colloquium Best Poster (1st place) and the Debbie Morrin Nordlund Travel Award (2023). Jens has served as a graduate teaching assistant, has presented his research at numerous national and international conferences including the 2023 Gordon Research Conference on Phyco/Mycotoxins and the 2023 International Symposium in Okinawa on Ciguatera and Related Marine Biotoxins. Jens achievements extend past the academic: an Advanced Open Water certified diver, Jens is also a military veteran, having served as Platoon Commander in the Singapore Military Regiment, training fresh recruits into soldiers in basic military training. Jens recalls the experience of free-soloing a small Japanese dam at 2 a.m. while fighting a bad infection in order to get his team of 3 members to safety as an opportunity to learn to be adaptable, responsible and tenacious. Jens is set to present his research on the movement behavior of the harmful dinoflagellate Gambierdiscus; which is the causative agent in ciguatera poisoning, a major burden on the seafood supply in the US and the world at the 2024 Phycological Society of America Meeting. His research aims to connect how their behavior might affect our ability to monitor them. We at the MEES Graduate Program are proud of all of our exceptional scholars! Congratulations, Jens, this is a well earned recognition of all your hard work! For more on Jens, please click here.

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