REU Research Projects

A research project can be made up of research mentors, graduate mentors and REU students. Projects vary when it comes to the number of people on project teams, but most students are paired with both a faculty research mentor and a graduate student mentor. Each project team works to address an overarching research question.Throughout the summer, REU fellows are expected to work on their own research within the larger context of the overarching research project.

At the end of the summer, all students will present their work at the annual Coastal Ecosystems REU Site Research Symposium and will be encouraged to present at other scientific conferences.

2019 Projects

Find out about the 2019 REU students and projects in CASE News.

Additional Project Areas

The projects listed below are representative of the interdisciplinarity of our research theme and the scope of related projects REU students could develop. For a complete list of possible research mentors, click here.

• Robotics fabrication of low-cost environmental sensors

  Mentor(s): Dr. Piero Gardinali, Dr. Shahin Vassigh, Brad Schonhoff (CREST Coordinator)

  This multi-disciplinary partnership with FIU’s Robotics and Digital Fabrication lab enables student researchers to build and test innovative sensing devices for drones and other deployable field sensing equipment.

  

  

  

• Long-term change periphyton edibility in Everglades food webs

  Mentor(s): Dr. Evelyn Gaiser, Kristin Briggs (Ph.D. student)

  Student will participate in the sampling of periphyton and aquatic consumers throughout the greater Everglades ecosystem and in conjunction with the routine FCE LTER sampling, contributing to a >20 year, >100 site spatially-explicit landscape-scale dataset.

• Using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry to assess physiological stress in fish

  Mentor(s): Dr. Piero Gardinali, Dr. Natalia Soares Quinete (postdoc), Dr. Alex Mercado Molina (postdoc)

  Students will be involved in a multidisciplinary project aiming to determine the physiological response of eastern mosquito fish when exposed to different levels of MeHg.

• Waterborne contaminant impacts on behavior and food web dynamics in coastal ecosystems

  Mentor(s): Dr. Jone Corrales, Dr. Marta D’Elia (postdoc), Tiffany Yanez (MS student)

  Students will study the impacts of metal waterborne contamination on behavior in various fish species found in wetlands, mangroves and coastal reefs.

• Characterization of acquired environmental modifications in the epigenome as indicators of stress in coral reef ecosystems impacted by extreme weather events

  Mentor(s): Dr. Jose Eirin-Lopez, Dr. Alex Mercado Molina (postdoc), Javier Rodriguez (PhD student)

  Students will develop molecular analyses of coral samples collected monthly from areas impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, characterizing epigenetic modifications (DNA methylation) at different locations and under different environmental conditions.

  

  

• Transport of constituents between groundwater and surface water

  Mentor(s): Dr. Rene Price, Dr. Shimelis Dessu (postdoc), Josh Allen (PhD student)

  Students will investigate the transfer of constituents and nutrients with groundwater flow from the mangroves to the rivers in the Everglades.

• Urban Acoustic Detection: Using Sound to Sample Miami’s Urban Canal, River & Storm water Networks

  Mentor(s): Dr. John Kominoski, Dr. Kevin Boswell, Dr. Shahin Vassigh

  Students will analyze the ecology in canal, urban rivers and storm-water networks using acoustically sensed data and develop visualization scenarios with FIU’s Integrated Computer Assisted Virtual Environment (I-CAVE) laboratory.

  

  

• Long-term change in seagrass communities in Florida Bay

  Mentor(s): Dr. Jim Fourqurean, Riki Bonnema (MS Student)

  Students will participate in the seagrass monitoring program including conducting fish and benthic animal surveys along a number of transects and use our historic database of such data that goes back over 20 years to make inferences about change through time.

  

  

• Assessing mangrove forests role in the removal and storage of contaminants

  Mentor(s): Dr. Mike Ross, Dr. Danielle Ogurcak (postdoc)

  Students will investigate the capacity of black (Avicennia germinans) and red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) to sequester traces metals.

• Impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on coral reef ecosystems in Puerto Rico and assessment of population health

  Mentor(s): Dr. Jose Eirin-Lopez, Dr. Alex Mercado Molina, (postdoc), Javier Rodriguez (PhD student)

  Students will develop studies linking physiology to sub-organismal processes within individuals to population growth rates.