The Team
This collaborative project brings together two universities, Boston University (BU) and the University of Georgia's Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SkIO/UGA), and a non-profit independent research and innovation center, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International.
![]() Wally Fulweiler received her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the Gr at the University of Rhode Island in 2007. From there she went to LSU to complete her post-doctoral work with Robert Twilley in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences. Since 2008, she has been at Boston University where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Earth and Environment and the Department of Biology. She is also the Associate Director of the aduate S chool of OceanographyBU Marine Program. Most of her benthic flux measurements have been on muddy sediments around New England and in Louisiana. But NSF funded work on the New England continental shelf made her eager to learn how to measure biogenic gases in permeable sediments.
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![]() Bill Savidge, currently at theSkidaway Institute of Oceanography , is a biogeochemist with a background in both benthic ecology and stable isotope geochemistry. For the last decade, his research has focused primarily on using automated in situ instrumentation to obtain time series information a bout be nthic and water column processes on the open shelf and in estuarine waters. He uses time series analysis and simple models to estimate chemical fluxes as a function of changing external forcing. He was lead PI on the BOTTOMS UP benthic observatory program which led to the development of the 1st generation porewater sampler for analysis of biogenic gases by in situ mass spectrometry. He is a co-PI on the Groves Creek project, which seeks to use continuous in situ measurement to determine both the quantitative exchange of materials between the salt marsh and surrounding estuary, but also qualitative changes in the reactivity of exchanged organic matter.
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![]() Tim Short received his Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the University of Tennessee in 1987, and following a post-doctoral position in Stockholm, Sweden he worked for eight years as a Research Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), focusing on instrumental development in mass spectrometry. He left ORNL in 1997 to work at the University of South Florida’s Center for Ocean Technology, and subsequently joined SRI’s St. Petersburg, FL office in 2007 where he is currently part of the Space and Marine Technology Laboratory. At USF and SRI his primary research interests have included development of underwater mass spectrometers and miniaturization of mass spectrometers.
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![]() Andres Cardenas-Valencia, Ph.D., is a senior research engineer in SRI International’s Space and Marine Technology Laboratory. Cardenas-Valencia received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering (minor in math and polymer synthesis) and an M.S. in engineering from the University of South Florida. His B.S. in chemical engineering is from the University of Guadalajara with an specialization on polymeric materials). Since joining SRI in 2007, Cardenas-Valencia has worked on several development projects, including optical sensors including spectrophotometric and scattering sensors (e.g., determination of optical properties, colloidal and particle dispersion analysis, and chemical characterization of fluids); power sources (e.g. water-activated batteries, semi-fuel cells, and microbial fuel cells) for underwater environments; and underwater mass spectrometry sampling interfaces.
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![]() Strawn Toler received her Ph.D. from the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida in 2002, where she was also part of the research staff of the Center for Ocean Technology (COT). The COT was transitioned to SRI International in 2007, where she continues her work on the development and deployment of underwater mass spectrometer (UMS) systems. She has expertise in mass spectrometry; marine applications; marine chemical detection methodologies and field deployments; analytical chemistry laboratory techniques; applications of UMS systems and experience with statistical and data analysis techniques. Representative research assignments at SRI include the calibration, maintenance and testing of UMSs; participation in field deployments of UMS systems; analysis and interpretation of data collected using UMS systems; testing and development of new mass spectrometry laboratory systems and interfaces; and applications development for UMS systems.
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![]() Emily Chua graduated from Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia) in 2015 where she obtained her B.Sc. Combined Honours in Physics and Oceanography. Throughout her undergraduate degree she pursued a variety of research interests, including a DAAD Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) Scholarship at the University of Konstanz, Germany where she investigated charge transport in hybrid solar cells. In 2014, she was a Summer Student Fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering department. Her WHOI project involved developing a membrane inlet system to be integrated with an underwater mass spectrometer (UMS) for biogeochemical measurements in the deep sea. This summer research piqued her interest in the area of applied ocean science and underwater instrumentation. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Biogeosciences at Boston University under Dr. Wally Fulweiler.
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