2008 Maureen Keller Student Awards
Congratulations to Shi Hong, Iris Baula, Laura Escalera, and Veronica Lundgrenfor receiving student presentation awards at the 13th International Conference on Harmful Algae in Hong Kong. Below are each awardee's photo and biography.
Shi Hong
Shi Hong was awarded the Maureen Keller Best Student Oral Presentation for her talk on "Isolation and Identification of mazEF Gene from Microcystis Aeruginosa PCC 7820". Co-authoring with her was her adviser Dr. Zhang Jun. Shi Hong holds a Master’s Degree in Science from the School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. Degree at the Third Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration. Her research focuses on the outbreak and control mechanisms for harmful algae, especially Microcystis aeruginosa, from a molecular biology perspective. Outside of work, Shi Hong takes great pleasure in concerts and travelling. She also enjoys spending time with her family and friends. Looking back, Shi Hong was ecstatic to have attended the ISSHA Conference where she made a lot of good friends. She looks forward to advancing her research in the harmful algal bloom field.
Iris Baula
Iris U. Baula received the Maureen Keller Honorable Mention for Students Oral Presentation for her communication on "Modern dinoflagellate cysts from a mariculture area in Pangasinan, Northwestern Philippines". Co-authors with her were advisers Dr. Rhodora Azanza and Dr. Yasuwo Fukuyo. Iris graduated cum laude in BS Biology from the University of Manila and gladly skipped medical school to work as a research associate at the Marine Science Institute in the University of the Philippines (UP). Her fascination with microscopy must have led her to the stewardship of Prof. Rhodora Azanza who pioneered harmful microalgae research in the Philippines. She initially worked on the physiology of Noctiluca scintillans and monitored bay areas in the Philippines that were prone to HABs. She was also involved in projects that trained local government units in monitoring harmful microalgae. She is in the final stages of her thesis on dinoflagellate cysts to complete her MSc in Marine Science in UP. To keep sane, she takes breaks from the laboratory and goes SCUBA diving (another passion she later discovered in her research career), camping, hiking and traveling.
Laura Escalera
Laura Escalera received the Maureen Keller Best Student Poster award for her work “Cyanobacterial endosymbionts in the benthic dinophysioid dinoflagellate Sinophysis canaliculata?” (Laura Escalera, Sadaaki Yoshimatsu, Kiyotaka Takishita, Kanae Koike and Kazuhiko Koike). Laura studied marine biology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain). Currently she is about to finish her thesis, at the Instituto Español de Oceanografía in Vigo under the supervision of Beatriz Reguera. Laura’s research keeps her in contact with phytoplankton community biology, presently with a special focus on the biology and ecology of species of the genus Dinophysis. Her interest in electronic microscopy led her to obtain training in different techniques, and to visit IPIMAR (Portugal) and more recently the University of Hiroshima (Japan), where she carried out, with Dr Koike and colleagues, the work for which she received this award at the XIII ICHA Conference.
Veronica Lundgren
Veronica Lundgren was given the Maureen Keller Honorable Mention for Students Poster Presentation for her work on “Grazer induced defense in Phaeocystis globosa: influence of different nutrient conditions”. This work was conducted together with her main supervisor, Prof. Edna Granéli, at the Marine Science Centre of Kalmar University, Sweden. Veronica is currently undergoing her second year as a Ph.D. candidate, with her research focusing on chemically mediated interactions between zoo- and phytoplankton. Veronica obtained an MSc in Marine Biology at Lund University – Campus (Helsingborg) before joining the research team led by Prof. Granéli in Kalmar. Her plan for the future, after finishing her Ph.D. studies, is to do a post doc and hopefully continue her work within the intriguing research field of zoo- and phytoplankton interactions. When not working in the lab, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, playing floorball and painting.
