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Young scientists SOME of the country's brightest young scientists spent the summer in Hawaii and California getting their feet wet -- not in the surf, but in research.
push internship
program
Student makes mark
in aquaculture studyBy Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin
Thirty Hawaii and mainland university students were chosen from among hundreds of applicants for two undergraduate summer internship programs.
Scientists were impressed when the students presented their results at recent symposiums at the University of Hawaii.
They covered such topics as spinner dolphins, aerosols in the near-shore environment, astaxanthin production, anti-cancer compounds, new antibiotics from marine bacteria, microdiversity in Lake Waiau, and marine algae as sources for chemicals for medicine, among other complex problems.
George Balazs, National Marine Fisheries Service turtle expert, listened intently while his son, Christian, discussed "Effects of Temperature and Ionic Strength on Phosphorus Desorption in Tropical Estuarine Environments."
Christian is a chemistry major attending Tulane University on a full scholarship.
Nicholas Farmer of Trinity University studied native Hawaiian trap fishing at the Institute of Marine Biology, examining a Hawaiian belief that white porcelain or coconut items enhance the catch. His finding: "No trap catches more fish than others."
Aleta Estrada of Southwestern University worked at the Pacific Biomedical Research Center, examining the relationships between a small nocturnal Hawaiian squid and its related bioluminescent bacteria.
Those are just a few examples.
"A lot of the time, we feel our younger generation won't measure up," said Sara Peck, with the UH Sea Grant Extension Service in Kailua-Kona.
"These kids more than measure up. It gives us hope for the future," she said.
Peck and Stacey Shulman of University of California, Berkeley, coordinated 21 research fellows in a Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center and Marine Option Program.
Ten worked at UC-Berkeley, UH's partner in the center; three at Monsanto/Kelco in San Diego, and three at Aquasearch Inc. in Kailua-Kona -- industrial partners. The others were at UH-Manoa.
Harvey Blanch, Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center associate director at UC-Berkeley, said it had "a very nice group" of students this summer and hopes to attract some to UH for graduate work. "If Berkeley can be of assistance there, we're anxious to do that."
Sponsoring the internships were the National Science Foundation, UH and UC Sea Grant Programs, Aquasearch, Monsanto, and the Marine Option Program.
The UH department of oceanography and Marine Option Program also sponsored "Summer 2000 Oceanography Research Experiences for Undergraduates" with foundation funding.
"We had over 200 applications; we took nine of them," said Nancy Koike, student service specialist in the Oceanography Department. "We had to turn away 4.0 grade point averages."
When the oceanography-Marine Option Program summer program began in 1994, the department averaged about 60 applications, Koike said.
"When we put the application and information on the web page, they doubled almost, and they've been increasing ever since," she said.
Peck said the 21 Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center-Marine Option Program interns were selected from 174 applications in "extremely tough" competition.
"We lambaste the way education is delivered at our schools," she said. "Many of these students are products of public schools and public universities, so somebody out there is teaching them something."
Peck said she was impressed with the high caliber of the students and their work ethic. "They committed to accomplish some things, and we didn't make this particularly easy," she said.
Besides their research, they had written and oral assignments throughout the 10-week program.
Koike said, "I don't understand the science but thought it was very well-presented. They accomplished quite a bit in a short period of time."
Marine Option Program Director Sherwood Maynard was a co-investigator with UH oceanography professor Michael Landry for the Oceanography-Marine Option program and with Jay Keasling of UC-Berkeley on the other program.
"People who want interns are raising the ante, so there is not only competition for interns to get into our program, but for our program to compete with others for interns," Peck said.
"One of the things we have in Hawaii going for us in terms of our internship offerings is that we are in Hawaii."
Hawaii's aquaculture industry may benefit from Lena Asano's summer job. Student makes mark
in aquaculture studyBy Helen altonn
Star-BulletinWorking with fish tanks at Windward Community College, the 21-year-old Hilo student experimented with a method of using bacteria to clean pollutants from the tanks.
"We can culture fish with no water input so you can save hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per month," said Asano, a University of Hawaii-Manoa senior this fall. "It's a good deal and all the fish are fine."
Asano has been doing research as a Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center and Marine Option Program summer intern.
She also had an internship last year, working on a type of zooplankton. This year her project is "Water Conservation by Bioremediation in Aquaculture."
It involves using bacteria to clean tank water polluted by fish so new water isn't needed and it isn't wasted, she explained.
Asano's internship ended Aug. 4 but she has worked three years for Harry Ako, one of her mentors, and will continue to work on her experiment with him during her senior year.
He is chairman of the Department of Environmental Biochemistry, College of Tropical Agriculture.
Her plan after graduation is either to go to Japan to continue her education or start her own aquaculture business.
Ako said Asano "is probably one of the most distinguished undergraduate students. She has something like 20 publications. She's one of the few undergraduates who can almost get tenure."
He said she's a multicultural scholar in a U.S. Department of Agriculture Program for Pacific Islanders and Asians.
He said she came to see him one day before she was to begin her freshman year and asked, "When do I start?"
"You can start tomorrow," he replied.
"They have in that program a requirement for one capstone paper to her career. She's done three, four or five."
Since the USDA Program doesn't run in the summer, he suggested she apply for the program, he said.
She has a Rotary Club scholarship to spend a year in Japan, and probably can get her doctorate degree at Tokyo University if she wants to, he said.
Farming also is an option for her, Ako said, noting, "Last year, agriculture was the only segment that grew in Hawaii."