Mentorship

I served as an intern under Dr. Thomas Miller, Director of the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Sciences - Chesapeake Biological Lab. I worked in the lab for an average of three hours per session and enjoyed the time even if the crabs I was tasked with dissecting reeked. During my internship I learned the ins and outs of how a proper biological lab works and how to effectively prepare, collect and analyze scientific data. These skill and respect for procedures are applicable to anyone in any field of study.

My typical day started by dissecting several crabs and prepping the flesh for freeze drying. This was easily the worst part because the crab samples were rather old and tended to suffer from freezer burn. Next, I took the previous week's samples out of the freeze dryer and began prepping tablets, adding ethanol from a micro pipette to make the samples solidly. Finally I ran then in a Purr Bomb calorimeter which operates by

igniting the sample in an oxygen rich chamber then measuring the heat dispersal into a water jacket. After each trial I had to correct the data for any unused sample or fuse wire and change the buckets of water. Finally, data was entered into Excel and analyzed.