Emma S
- Research Program Mentor

PhD at University of Rhode Island

Expertise

Physiology, genomics, biology, marine biology, coral reefs, environmental science, conservation

Bio

I'm a marine and molecular biologist with specialties in genomics, fisheries, coral reefs, and marine conservation. I'm a Staff Scientist at Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute (GMGI; https://gmgi.org/) where my research focus is using environmental epigenetics to enhance marine conservation and management efforts. My work seeks to understand how organisms respond to changing environments around them (ie climate change) and the mechanisms of resilient phenotypes. My passion for marine science started at a young age as I grew up next to the ocean in Seattle, Washington. While in high school, I worked at the Seattle Aquarium in a science communication role and from that experience knew I wanted to pursue a career as a biologist. I completed my B.Sc. in Biology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California and my Ph.D. in Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. After my time at URI, I started at GMGI as a postdoctoral researcher on the Fisheries team and now lead my own research program. Feel free to explore my webpage (https://linktr.ee/emmastrand) for more information on previous projects that I've worked on!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Write a research review paper

A review paper summarizing current research on student's topic of choice. Example: how different organisms are able to deal with increasing levels of stress in their surrounding environment (e.g., coral reefs exposed to higher temperatures). Skills gained: scientific writing, data visualization

Design and conduct a scientific experiment

Designing an experiment based on student's research question, then analyzing collected data and writing a scientific paper summarizing the results. Skills gained: experimental design and set-up, data analysis, biostatistics, data visualization, scientific writing.

Analyze Environmental and Biological Data

Identify publicly available data related to student's question, re-analyze downloaded data, and write a scientific research paper. Skills gained: data analysis, biostatistics, data visualization, scientific writing.

Coding skills

R, Linux

Teaching experience

I have mentored 45+ undergraduates and high school students in both the field and laboratory and have taught six undergraduate physiology labs at the University of Rhode Island.