News

As part of her dissertation work, Maddie led a large field experiment in Los Peñasquitos Lagoon that just recently wrapped up. In addition to her typical deployments (pressure sensors, current meters, salinity/temperature sensors, etc.) she also deployed a Distributed Temperature Sensor (DTS) which consists of a long cable that can effectively measure temperature at very high spatial resolution. This month-long deployment required going to the lagoon multiple times per week to collect data and check on equipment.

Heitor presented his research in our group at the 2017 UCSD Undergraduate Research Conference and got excellent feedback! Very excited to have him working with us and expanding upon an interactive model visualization tool which we hope to release by this coming summer!!

Heitor presenting at one of our past group meetings x infinity! He had to connect to another computer via video conference in order to present so it resulted in an infinite string of images of himself!

Congratulations to Angelica Rodriguez and Maddie Harvey for passing their qualifying exams! Angelica advanced to candidacy on 21 March 2017 and Maddie advanced to candidacy on 6 December 2017. I am super proud of my students, they are all doing an excellent job! Here they are engulfing Angelica in a hug after her post-quals celebratory lunch!

Yesterday we went out on the Sally Ann to swap the batteries on some offshore instrumentation.  Despite some extremely dense fog that made navigating tricky we made some new friends! Both instruments were playing host to octopi that only left their homes inside the instrument after the instruments were hauled on deck. One octopus decided to make his great escape back to the ocean through the boat’s bilge pump.  Luckily, Kent and Greg were able to save him and put him back in the water!

Madeleine volunteered with the Ocean Discovery Institute’s Wetland Exploration Program to talk to 4th grade students about wetlands and what it is like to be a scientist.

Madeleine speaking with 4th grades students at Emory Cove Ecological Reserve.

Angelica, Isa, and Maddie went out to the lagoon to change out the batteries on our instruments.  We continually measure depth, water velocity, dissolved oxygen, salinity, and temperature in the lagoon.

Giddings and Harvey attended the Intermittenly Open Estuaries: Science & Mangagement Perspectives workshop in LA. Great discussions about these systems, the issues they face, and management approaches. Thanks to the Tijuana National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Wetlands Recovery Project for hosting this great meeting!

Giddings and CSIDE (Cross Surfzone / Innershelf Dye Exchange) graduate student Derek Grimes attended and presented at the International Boundary & Water Commission Citizen’s Forum on 1 September 2016. Grimes showed preliminary results from the CSIDE project which was highlighted in the local news.

the Giddings lab participated in the SIO Block Party, showing examples of extreme water level impacts on our local coastlines. The party was attended by hundreds of interested locals who got to learn about SIO science directly from the researchers. Here Isa flips through one of the flip-books of estuary sediment accretion/erosion created by Maddie and undergraduate researcher Mia Gonzalez.

Urban Tides Initiative citizen science project featured in the USC Sea Grant newsletter along with other wonderful citizen science projects led by USC Sea Grant!