Entries by Sage Lichtenwalner

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2025 Palmer LTER Video Teleconferences

Educators: Join Polar Scientists on a Research Expedition to Palmer Station, Antarctica  We are recruiting 12-18 educators and their students to participate in the 2025 LTER field season in Antarctica! This unique opportunity will immerse students in the fascinating world of Antarctic food web ecology and demonstrate how scientists are using long-term experiments to study […]

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Benjamin Van Mooy named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow

Congratulations to PAL Co-PI Benjamin Van Mooy, who was named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow! MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, often colloquially referred to as the MacArthur Genius Award, celebrate and inspire the creative potential of individuals through no-strings-attached fellowships. In their announcement, the foundation described Dr. Van Mooy’s innovative work on plankton, which is also what brought […]

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New Species of Antarctic Dragonfish Discovered

A new species of Antarctic dragonfish, Akarotaxis gouldae or Banded Dragonfish, has been discovered in waters off the western Antarctic Peninsula by researchers at VIMS and William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences, including lead author Andrew Corso, who was a graduate student at the time. The species, named in honor of the recently […]

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Oscar Schofield named a Marine Technology Society Fellow

Earlier this month, PAL Principle Investigator Dr. Oscar Schofield was officially named a Fellow of the Marine Technology Society (MTS), in recognition of his many years of service to the marine technology community at Rutgers and beyond. In addition to leading the PAL LTER project, Oscar is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine […]

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Former PAL Undergrad About to Launch into Space

Zena Cardman was an undergrad when she first sailed with the PAL LTER as part of Hugh Ducklow’s team in 2009. And now, next month, Zena will serve as spacecraft commander on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Station Station! The launch is currently scheduled for no earlier that September 24th. She was recently […]

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Farewell R/V Gould

This year, the R/V Laurence M. Gould completed its 27-year run as the Antarctic Research and Supply Vessel (ARSV) for the National Science Foundation. In that time, the ship spent nearly 6,300 days at sea, with over 1,000 supporting Palmer Station science, including 25 of the 31 Palmer LTER research cruises to date. The R/V […]

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New ADCP Backscatter Visualization Tool

Have you ever wondered what lies below the waters along the West Antarctic Peninsula? Now, you can use a new interactive map tool developed by former PAL graduate student Amanda Lohmann (now a PostDoc at the University of Virginia), to explore ADCP backscatter intensity data from the 2005-2016 cruises. The tool allows you to explore […]

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Melting Point: Where is the Antarctic Sea Ice?

For World Penguin Day last month, PAL Co-PI Dr. Sharon Stammerjohn was featured in a video produced by the Wilson Center on the recent changes in Antarctic sea ice. The above video was featured in the World Penguin Day 2024 email from the Wilson Center, along with some penguin facts and a second video with […]

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New paper: Watching the Sunrise on our Ocean Planet

PAL PI Oscar Schofield was recently asked to provide a “senior scientist view of the world” as part of the Food for Thought series in the ICES Journal of Marine Science. In this retrospective, Oscar recounts how he ended up as an oceanographer, he shares tales of his early field experiences and the friends he […]

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New paper on changing phytoplankton phenology along the Antarctic Peninsula

In a recent paper, Jessica Turner, a PAL collaborator and Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Connecticut, found that phytoplankton blooms are starting later rather than earlier over time, likely driven by increased wind mixing. Her coauthors include Heidi Dierssen, Oscar Schofield, Heather H. Kim, Sharon Stammerjohn, David R. Munro and Maria Kavanaugh. Abstract: Climate […]

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