Research for Undergraduates in Math and Science (RUMS)
As a junior I was informed of a research internship that was two years long called RUMS. This program at Old Dominion University (ODU) is ran by Dr. David Gauthier and Dr. Holly Gaff, allowing students to observe/develop research experiments along with giving opportunities to publish their finding.
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I inquired about the program and the classification requirements. I was told the program was two years long, however, at the time I only had one year at ODU left. I was told to apply for an interview and I was accepted into the program with the agreement I would have the same project requirements within a one year span.
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The first semester, prior to being assigned a lab, I worked with Dr. Gauthier, a professor at Old Dominion University, learning Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing protocols.
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Through the summer of 2016 I was assigned to the Barrier Islands project with the ODU Tick Team under the supervision of Dr. Gaff, a Associate Professor at Old Dominion University. I went through a Tick 101 lecture and learned about field sampling protocols. The Barrier Island goal was to find the source of an emerging tick species Amblyoma maculatum (Gulf Coast Tick).
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Our Island Team sampled the ticks from the islands, tested the ticks for Rickettsia spp. prevalence, and extracted the ticks DNA. The DNA is currently being sequenced to test relative relatedness among the sampled ticks. My partner and I created a poster based on the findings from the summer and current research. This poster can be found under Publications & Grants.
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I also wrote a grant for my own research project with Ixodes spp. The grant for this project can be found under Publications & Grants.
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Photos of our tick team sampling the Barrier Islands