Kira Triebergs , MS student

Research Interests: I am a first year masters student who just moved here from Massachusetts. I love tide-pooling, and am fascinated by how different the tide pools here are from the tidepools at home. I have a lot to learn about the organisms living on the Oregon coast, and am so excited to be here! My biological interests are broad, and at this point, I feel I am interested in every aspect of marine biology, especially when it involves going out in the field. In the past I have focused on food web interactions in salt marshes as well as in lake ecosystems. Currently I am working on a project where we are raising baby barnacles (nauplii). We collected them from adults that we found on the spines of sea urchins and backs of crabs in the deep sea. We even found a tiny parasite that lives on our barnacles; no one knows very much about it, so I hope we can learn more about that too!

Advisor: Dr. Richard Emlet

About GK-12: I grew up in a small town on the water, so ever since I was little, I have been around the ocean. I can trace my passion and excitement for science back to my 5th and 6th grade biology teachers. Their enthusiasm for the subject and willingness to bring science into the classroom (or to bring us into the field) inspired me to continue learning about biology and to constantly question the world around me. Even now, in graduate school, I clearly remember some of the lessons we learned, and in retrospect I see how much of an influence they had on my future. Now I am able to go into classrooms and share my enthusiasm for biology with elementary students, with the hope of inspiring them about science, and encouraging them to think like scientists.