NOYES FELLOWSHIP WINNERS
MSRC students Glynis Nau- Ritter and George McManus were recently honored by their designation as Jessie Smith Noyes Fellows for the 1982-83 academic year. JSN fellowships are awarded yearly to outstanding students working on important problems of the coastal marine environment.
Ms. Nau-Ritter who is working toward a Ph.D. at the Center, will use the Noyes Fellowship to study the effects of the interaction of the heavy metal Cadmium with aromatic hydrocarbon pollutants on the metabolism of the blue crab. The blue crab is an important food source, and is widely fished commercially.
Ms. Nau-Ritter lived in Douglaston, N.Y. before attending, and gaining a B.S. in biology from, the College of Mount St. Vincent Riverdale N. Y. She went on to gain a masters degree in Marine Science at MSRC, and now pursues a doctorate in that field. Her faculty advisor is Professor Charles Wurster.
George McManus will use his fellowship to continue his study of protozoa as grazers of marine bacterioplankton as part of his research toward a Ph.D. in coastal oceanography. Mr. McManus lived in Valley Stream, N. Y. before attending college. He received his B. S. in biology at Cornell University.
The two fellows submitted proposals for study, in competition with other Center students, to gain the prestigious fellowships.
SUMMER FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM FOR UNDERGRADUATES
This past summer, the Marine Sciences Research Center (MSRC) hosted two visiting undergraduate students as part of a new program to provide research opportunities for outstanding undergraduate science students interested in the marine sciences.
Amy Wardell, an engineering major at Yale University, and Elaine Anderson, a geology major at Dartmouth College, spent two months this summer researching the sea floor off the East Hampton shore.
Wardell, who will return to Yale this fall as a senior working toward a B.S. in mechanical engineering, completed an 82 sq. km. mapping project of former sea floor surfaces formed many thousands of years ago, and now buried under the sands offshore. She used seismic profiling to gather data, a method she had not used previously. The work tied in with her career objectives because, “As an engineer,” she said, “I would like to work with shore protection and the building of jetties and other coastal structures, or in ocean engineering.”
Elaine Anderson spent her time collecting grab samples of surface sediments in the same area, an offshore section of the East Hampton Quadrangle. More than 100 samples were collected and analyzed to chart important sediment characteristics.
The two spent three days aboard the RV ONRUST, the Center ‘s largest research vessel, gathering the information they would analyze in the balance of their two-month stay at the Center.
Assoc. Prof. Henry Bokuniewicz, who was the advisor for the two visitors, said the ancient seafloor contours mapped by Amy would be interfaced with the information on recent seafloor activity gathered by Elaine, in an attempt to determine how the area behaved in the intermediate time period. The information, he said could be used in the study of erosive forces and beach nourishment.
Amy and Elaine presented their work to members of the Center’s shore processes group, and followed the presentation with a going-away party. Prof. Bokuniewicz said the information from both projects would be integrated further, and presented at the March 1983 meeting of the Geological Society of America.
PEOPLE AND MEETINGS
Prof. MARY SCRANTON, Technical Assistant P. A. LOUD, and graduate student P. C. NOVELLI spent 20 July to 3 August at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute studying hydrogen cycling by anaerobic bacteria in a coastal salt pond. Prof. Scranton, P. A. Loud and Graduate student R. A. CHEMERYS then spent 24 August to 7 September at the Bermuda Biological Station studying hydrogen production in the blue-green algae Oscillatoria thebautii.
BETSY ANN ADAMSON was a participant in a month-long World Energy and Development Conference, June-July 1982 at the Universities Field Staff International Institute of World Affairs, in Salsbury Connecticut. Partial support for her participation was provided by the Stony Brook Foundation.
GLENN LOPEZ was invited to talk at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, held at the Pennsylvania State Univ., on 8-l2 August 1982. His talk was entitled, “Ingestion selectivity of organic (detritus and microorganisms by molluscan deposit-feeders.”
Professor JERRY SCHUBEL and Prof. HARRY CARTER taught a course in coastal and estuarine processes at the University of Concepcion’s “Segundas Journadas de Ciencias del Mar.” Prof. Schubel was also a member of a Planning Committee for, and a speaker at The Workshop on Management of Coastal Resources, held at the Univ. of Concepcion.
MARY SCRANTON, with co-authors FRANK L. HERR and WILLIAM BARGER, of the Environmental Sciences Division of the Naval Research Lab, was awarded the Navali Research Laboratory Environmental Sciences Division Publication Prize for 1981, for a paper entitled “Dissolved Hydrogen in the Norwegian Sea : Mesoscale Surface Variability and Deep-water Distribution.”
Prof. MALCOM BOWMAN presented a review lecture on oceanic fronts at the North Atlantic Study Institute on Coastal Oceanography. The recent conference was hosted by the University of Bergen, Norway. He also presented an invited lecture on cross-frontal mixing and cyclonic eddies at the Symposium on Cross frontal Mixing at the Joint Oceanographic Assembly, held at Dalhouise Univ., Halifax, Canada.
MINDY ZIMMERMAN presented a paper she prepared with Prof. HENRY BOKUNIEWICZ, entitled, “Coastal Geometry of a Receding Sandy Headland.” The paper was presented at the Northeast Sectional Meeting of the Geological Society of America, held recently in Washington, D.C.
RECENT MSRC GRADUATES
Three students completed requirements in May, 1982, for the M. S. Degree:
- DWIGHT REESE, The Effect of Metals on Methanogenisis in Salt Marsh Sediments. (Prof. Doug Capone) He is now employed as a Research Technician at the Boston Univ. Medical Center.
- JEFFERY SCHAEFER, A Microcomputer Information System, (Prof. Peter Weyl) He is now employed as a Project Manager for the Development of synthetic aggregate from coal waste at Valley Forge Labs, PA.
- JEFFERY SNOW, Coliform Analysis of Great South Bay. (Prof. Peter K. Weyl) He is now employed as an Associate Engineer for United Technologies, Windsor Locks, CT.
Two students completed in May the requirements for the Ph.D. degree:
- GERARD CAPRIULO, The Seasonal Importance of Micro-zooplankton as Grazers of Phytoplankton Biomass in the Long Island Sound. (Prof. Edward Carpenter) He is now employed at the MSRC.
- BRIAN SANDERSON, A Lagrangian Description of Drifter Dispersion. (Prof. Akira Okubo). He is now a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
FOR PROFESSOR EMERITUS J. L. McHUGH, A WORKING RETIREMENT.
Dr. J. L. McHugh published his first scientific paper in 1936, after he had been in the research field only a short while. Almost 50 years, and more than 150 publications later, McHugh is still putting out papers. He plans to publish by the end of 1982, a book whose title reflects a relationship that troubles him greatly: , “Whales and Man.”
That is the briefest possible account of his career.
McHugh, bowing to New York State Law, retired in June of this year, at the age of 70-and-one-half years. But the people at the MSRC and those throughout the scientific community who know well his name, will not have to continue in the absence of this prolific researcher. McHugh says, in what may be a great understatement, “I still have a few Years left.” Thanks to his being named Professor Emeritus, he will spend as many of those years as possible continuing his work at the Center. The title of Professor Emeritus (Professor for Life) is an honor that will allow him to remain in his paper cluttered office, and continue to use the research facilities here.
Dr. J. R. Schubel, Director of the MSRC, said of McHugh’s continued work at the Center, “I have no intentions of letting him have a quiet and peaceful retirement.”
“Dr. McHugh is one of the most distinguished scholars in his field. His contributions to the Center, to the University, to the region, to the state, to the entire nation, and indeed to the international community have been enormous. He has been a major factor in the development of the MSRC into an international center of excellence in coastal oceanography, and I shall continue to turn to in for advice and guidance,” Schubel said.
Dr. McHugh is presently working with Dr. Schubel on a new initiative within the Center–an institute for living marine resources.
Dr. McHugh has been at the Center since 1970, when it was barely into its fourth year of existence. “It was pretty small then, but a lot has happened since. I’ve seen it expanded into a more comprehensive research center, with a well balanced faculty, and an expanded graduate teaching facility.”
He brought with him an impressive list of credentials and accomplishments, among them such notable positions as Chairmanship of the International Whaling Commission; Deputy Directorship of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries of the Department of the Interior; Head of the Office for the International Decade of Ocean Exploration of the National Science Foundation (which he left to join the Center faculty). More recent honors have been Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a three-year stint On the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which develops management plans for the 200 mile fishing limit for the United States. He currently serves on the Scientific and Statistical Committee for the MAFMC, which advises the council on management plans and other matters.
Dr. McHugh’s current work centers on the hard clam Mercenaria mercenaria, New York area fisheries in particular and national fisheries in general, and whales and whaling. He maintains a “fairly heavy correspondence” with others who share his concern for the ocean’s whale populations, and interestingly, trepidation about some of the groups dedicated to saving the whales. “There is probably more misinformation and innuendo,” McHugh feels, “about whales than about any other resource of the sea.” Although there are many knowledgeable people fighting for the rights of whales to exist in peace, he feels also that many are over-zealous and ill informed, and may be doing more harm than good. Too successful a campaign for the cessation of killing might actually drive some nations to drop out of the International Whaling Commission and whale according to their own rules. This problem is One of the major areas explored in his forthcoming book “Whales and Man”.
Much more could be said about J. L. McHugh, his previous positions and honors. Suffice it to say that it is fortunate for whales, fishes, clams, the MSRC, and the scientific community, that he is one for whom forced retirement means little.
MSRC ASSOCIATES
We welcome as continuing MSRC Associates:
- Dr. and Mrs. Harry Carter
- Mr. Gerald Cohen
- Mr. John Edinger
- Mr. Richard S. Goodman
PUBLICATIONS
ANDERSON, J. J. and A. OKUBO 1982. Resolution of chemical properties with a Vertical profiling pump. Deep Sea research 29A: 1013-1019.
CAPONE, DOUGLAS G. and EDWARD CARPENTER, 1982. Fixation nitrogen in the Marine Environment Science no. 4565 (ll40-ll42.
LOPEZ, GLENN R. , and I-JUINN CHENG, 1982. Ingestion Selectivity of Sedimentary Organic Matter by the Deposit-Feeder Nucula annulata (Bivalvia:Nuculidae) Marine Ecology – Progress Series, Vol. 8: 279-282.
McHUGH, J. L. , MARJORIE W. SUMNER, PAUL J. FLAGG, and WILLIAM J. BEHRENS. 1982. Annotated Bibliography of the hard clam Mercenaria mercenaria. NOAA Tech. Rept.
NMFS SSRF-756, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. , Natl. Marine Fish.Serv; iii + 845 p.
NAU-RITTER, GLYNIS, CHARLES F. WURSTER and RALPH. G. ROWLAND. 1982. Polychlorinated bipheynyls (PCB) desorbed from Clay particles inhibit photosynthesis by natural phytoplankton communities. Environmental Pollution, Series. A 28:177-182.
SCRANTON , M. I. , M. M. JONES and F. L. HERR. 1982. “Distribution and Variability of Hydrogen in the Mediterranean”, J. Marine Research 40 : 873-891.
ANDERSON, J. J. A. OKUBO, and F. A. RICHARDS 1982 – “A Model for Nitrate Distributions in Oceanic Oxygen Minimum Zones” Deep-Sea Research 29 A:1113-1l40.
