Master's Thesis Advisor: Dr. James Diana
For my masters thesis, I built a phosphorus mass balance model for a novel integrated aquaculture cage design in China. The design co-cultured channel catfish, tilapia, and several carp species in a floating cage in a reservoir. Catfish were intensively fed with commercial feed, while carp and tilapia ate phytoplankton, periphyton, and uneaten catfish feed. It was thought that this design would increase the amount of nutrients retained within the cage and therby reduce nutrient pollution into the surrounding waters. US AID Aquafish CRSP funded this research.
PI: Dr. Ed Rutherford
In 2011, I received a NOAA/CILER Summer Research Fellowship to build an
Ecopath & Ecosim model of the Lake Michigan food web, which also included field work collecting fish and zooplankton data. The goal of the model was to assess the ecologic impacts of current and future invasive species in the lake. A major goal of the project was to predict the impact of a potential invasion of Asian carp species into Lake Michigan. After the fellowship concluded, I continued working on this project as a research assisstant until March 2012.
