Week One - CMOP and Oregon

This was a great introduction week to both CMOP and the state of Oregon itself. I've been doing a lot of adjusting, but it's been great!

Coming from the East Coast, it's an exciting experience to get to know the Portland area. And, as a math major, I've been spending a lot of time this week doing some literature reviews to get up to speed with the ecological information needed in my project.
My work here will involve creating a model to describe the growth and grazing rates of zooplankton. The hope is that we will be able to incorporate this summer's work into a model that has been developed by Marta Rodrigues.

My mentor, Grant Law, has been doing a great job educating me about all aspects of this project, and I had the opportunity to participate in a video-conference with Marta Rodrigues. She works at a research center in Portugal and is just about to publish a paper describing her addition of zooplanton equations to the EcoSim model, which deals with phytoplankton.

Future plans include growing a culture of phytoplankton and zooplankton and I'll also have to continue my training with MATLAB.

Outside of the educational aspect of this summer, it's been fun to explore Oregon! This past Friday, the interns went on a trip to the Bonneville Dam (see picture!) and for a short hike afterwards. I also had my first experience of Portland's Saturday market. The summer has been great so far and I'm sure that the coming weeks will be very productive and also very fun.