A Visit to Our Lab and a Living Shoreline
On December 9th, 2025, our lab was visited by cohort of 10 students from Noble High School (Bewick, ME) along with their Extended Learning Opportunity (ELO) coordinators, Maddie Smith & Liam Danaher. The ELO program is designed to take students into the local community to better understand career opportunities available to them. The visiting group had a specific interest in science, particularly marine science. As studies from our lab cover both micro and macro marine science, one of the coordinators asked if they could visit. They were not disappointed.
After a short introduction to lab safety given by EHS officer Kristin Blackwell, the students were able to enter our labs and had the opportunity to visit with our lab members along with some guest speakers. The students observed PhD candidate Marjorie Mednikova prepare her samples for DNA extraction (Fig. 1) then practice pipetting with Dr. Ashley Bulseco. Master’s student Gabrielle Jarrett spoke to them about her work with microplastics (Fig. 2), followed up with some show and tell. They then listened to the sound production by salt marsh shrimp from based on the bioacoustic work led by PhD student Alex Sangermano. Guest speakers included Trevor Banister, Senior Research Technician & Lab Manager for Dr. Nathan Furey, who showed them fish tagging equipment, and Postdoctoral Research Associate Jannine Chamorro from Dr. Brittany Jellison’s lab, who spoke about her current work with oysters and her previous marine experience.
Following lunch on campus, the group met Dr. Moore’s Research Associate Jenny Gibson at Wagon Hill Farm (Durham, NH), where she guided them through a living shoreline project co-led by several members of UNH Coastal Habitat Restoration Team in collaboration with the City of Durham. As they walked along the shoreline, she explained how the project was possible, who was involved in making it happen, and how the team defined restoration success compared to the untreated shoreline. The students and coordinators were thrilled with the trip and asked to return the following year.