Expeditions
Antarctica to Alaska and places in between
I have been lucky enough to participate in three 47- 85 day research cruises with a focus on marine invertebrates of the deep sea and Antarctica. On these expeditions, the most incredible collaborations were fostered and lifelong friends made.
Icy Inverts Cruise
NBP 20-10
Lovingly referred to by most of us as the “COVID cruise”. NBP20-10 began with a 2-week quarantine at home, a 3-day quarantine at the San Francisco Airport Hotel, and 2-week quarantine on the RV/IB Nathanial B. Palmer at Port Hueneme, CA, before we could set sail. Due to the pandemic, the NBP had returned to the US for the first time in nearly 20 yrs. Now icebreakers are not known for their speed, so it took us about 4-weeks to get from California to our next port in Chile to stock up before our crossing of the Drake Passage to reach the 7th continent.
AleutBio Cruise S0293
In the Spring of 2022, due to the war in Ukraine, the AleutBio Expedition had to pivot from its original plans to sample deep-sea stations in Russian waters, and instead focus on the Aleutian Trench off the coast of Alaska. I was invited on this mission to collect deep-sea annelids and received an NSF Rapid Award to sequence their microbiomes to determine symbiotic potential in trench environments. It was my first time aboard a German vessel, and let me just say, the FS Sonne did NOT disappoint! This cruise was a huge international collaboration involving scientific researchers from 12 nations.
Icy Inverts Cruise II
NBP 23-03
NBP23-03 was the return to Antarctica for me, and it started in New Zealand this time instead of California (much closer to our target continent). There were still COVID quarantines and tests, but luckily, by this time, the COVID tests were not the ones that tried to tickle your brain.