Kelsey Lane: Kelsey joined my lab in 2018 as an MRM graduate student. She quantified changes in foraminifera assemblages off the Oregon coast using an archive of plankton tow material that spans the last decade (including samples from the last 2 marine heat waves). Her MS thesis was published in Frontiers in Marine Science in 2023. Kelsey is currently a PhD student in the OSU CEOAS Ocean Ecology and Biogeochemistry group studying foraminifera genetics, geochemistry, and microbiome associations AND she's expanded her master's project to include additional samples to assess seasonality. She will defend her PhD in January 2023 and will start a full time Professor of Practice position in CEOAS at OSU in March. Prior to grad school, Kelsey spent several years working as an Assistant Scientist at Sea Education Association (SEA Semester) where she taught students how to conduct scientific sampling aboard the tall ship the Corwith Cramer.
Photo details: Kelsey and Jenn nearly bumped into this huge spider hiking on Green Island, Taiwan in 2019. Kelsey for scale.
Grace Meyer: Grace joined my lab in 2018 as an URSA Engage participant in 2018, working with me and Jennifer McKay on a project analyzing benthic foram oxygen isotopes. She worked as an undergraduate Laboratory Assistant for 2 years where she gained experience speciating forams, clean individual and pooled samples, and using the laser.
In 2019, Grace received an OSU REU award and learned to use our new IRMS that has a specially designed Kiel device for analyzing very small calcite samples. She expanded her REU project for her MS degree using the new instrument to analyze individual forams that weigh as little as 4 micrograms. Grace graduated with an OEAS MS degree in September, 2023.
Grace is currently a Laboratory Technician 2 with a split appointment in the Fehrenbacher and Eidam Labs.
Photo details: Grace and Kelsey getting the sediment trap ready for redeployment on the R/V Sprout in September 11, 2022.
Chandra Schulte: Chandra joined my lab in the fall of 2022 in the Marine Resources Management master's program. Chandra is quantifying calcification of planktic foraminifera in the Northern California Current - linking shell thickness/weight to calcification conditions like temperature, nutrients, and pH to assess if forams can be used as regional indicator species for Ocean Acidification. This project involves taking seawater samples to test for carbonate chemistry, collecting CTD data, and measuring foram calcification metrics using a MicroCT scanner. She opes to increase awareness about forams and their relationship to OA and the carbonate cycle in the ocean.
Prior to coming to OSU, Chandra worked as a laboratory technician and analyst testing environmental and drinking water samples for mercury and various metals.
Photo details: Chandra with Becky Smoak onboard the R/V Shimada during the Fall NCC cruise. Chandra collected plankton tow and water samples for her project.
Lexi Thompson: Lexi joined my lab in the Fall 2022 as a Masters student in the OEAS program. Lexi is generating geochemical data from foram samples obtained from the first year of our sediment trap time series. She will correlate shell geochemistry to growth conditions, obtained from a nearby surface profiler (maintained by the Ocean Observatory Initiative). Lexi previously did undergraduate research with Kat Allen at the University of Maine.
Photo details: Members of the 2022 NEP3 Science Party on board the R/V Sally Ride. Pictured (from L to R): Grace Meyer, Chandra Schulte, Marlena Penn, Lexi Thompson, Grace Holmes, and Olivia Burnip
Undergraduate Students
Shannon Olson: Shannon is an undergraduate Ocean Sciences major began working in my lab in the Winter term 2023 and is currently the Undergraduate Lab Manager. Shannon helps process plankton tow and sediment trap samples, organizes the work that needs to be completed in the lab, and is helping to organize samples, lab equipment, and our SOPs. Shannon spent 5 weeks on Catalina Island helping to culture forams for our NERC/NSF funded biomineralization project.
Photo details: Shannon reading a book during a plankton tow collection on Catalina Island, July 2023.
Faith Shell - Faith is a senior undergraduate Ocean Sciences major and has been working with our lab group since July of 2019. She has helped pick samples from plankton tows, sailed on cruises, cleaned forams for analyses, analyzed forams on the laser, and helped with our MicroCT 3D foram project. Faith has 62 days at sea across ten cruises and seven different research vessels. In summer of 2022, Faith completed her REU at Texas A&M where she learned how to analyze forams on the mass spec for stable isotopes. Most recently, she spent 5 weeks on Catalina Island helping to culture forams for our NERC/NSF funded biomineralization project.
Faith also works for OSU Ship Operations, with the Regional Class Research Vessel Program where she assists in outfitting operations for OSU’s new regional class research vessel, the R/V Taani. In addition, she has also recently assumed a new position as field photographer for the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric sciences. Faith’s research looks at water column diagenesis in foraminifera, issuing sediment trap samples from the Panama Basin. She’ll be presenting her research at this year’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, CA.
Website: Schellfishphotography.com Photo details: Faith celebrating her birthday on Catalina Island, July 2023.
Grace Holmes - Grace is an undergraduate Ocean Sciences major who began working in the Foraminarium in the Fall 2021. Grace is currently processing samples from the San Pedro Basin for an undergraduate honors thesis. She is also an art-science scholar fellow and will turn results from her research project into art! Grace has also participated in research cruises, including the May and September sediment trap cruises.
Photo details: Grace is pictured here with her art projects that she showed at a Gallery event last year.
Sean Baxter: Sean is an undergraduate Ocean Sciences major who began working in the Foraminarium in the Winter term 2023. Sean is currently processing samples our sediment trap time series and also helps process plankton tow samples for graduate students. Sean participated in our May sediment trap cruise.
Photo details: Sean doing a plankton tow on board the R/V Sally Ride in May 2023.
Former Lab Members
Postdoctoral Scholar
UPDATE: Brittany is now a TT assistant professor at George Mason University (2022) Brittany Hupp: Brittany was a NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow working on trace element/Ca paleoproxy development through the geochemical characterization of modern planktic forams and their living environments throughout the Northern California Current. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where her dissertation focused on the investigation of ancient planktic foraminifera, both as geochemical archives of and responders to abrupt climate change events associated with global carbon cycle perturbations (e.g., the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum).
In general, Brittany’s research interests lie in exploring the dynamic interplay between ocean-climate change and ecological sensitivity, reconstructing marine systems in deep time, and working to improve and further develop our fundamental understanding of foraminiferal-based paleoproxies and how they are influenced by vital effects and secondary mechanisms (e.g., sediment mixing, diagenesis). You can read more about her past and current research at brittanynhupp.com.
Former Graduate and Undergraduate Students:
Former Graduate Students:
Theresa Fritz-Endres: Theresa earned her PhD in November 2021 in OEB (Ocean, Ecology and Biogeochemistry) studying foraminifera as recorders of oceanographic conditions in the modern ocean and through the last glacial maximum with a focus on the record of organic matter export, which is critical to understanding changes in atmospheric CO2 and carbon burial. Read about her PhD research here and here. Theresa also has a master's degree from San Francisco State where she worked with Dr. Petra Dekens. Her master's research: Application of individual foraminifera Mg/Ca and d18O analyses for paleoceanographic reconstructions in active depositional environments, is published in the journal Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology. Theresa is currently employed with the EPA in Corvallis, OR.
Photo details: Theresa at the gazebo overlook at Sleeping Beauty Rock, Green Island, Taiwan
Kelsey Lane: Kelsey earned an MS in Marine Resources Management in 2020 and is currently a PhD student in my lab. Grace Meyer: Grace earned an MS in OEAS in 2023 and is currently a Laboratory Technician 2 with a split position in the Fehrenbacher and Eidam labs.
Former Undergraduate Students: Jim Kelly, Lab research assistant, James helped prep and process forams for microCT analysis to understand changes in shell morphology with increased water depth. As of Fall 2023, James is working as an observer in the Alaskan Fisheries.
Julia Fontana, Laboratory Research Assistant, October 2017 to April 2019. Julia is a CEOAS Ocean Sciences major who is currently overwintering in Antarctica with Dr. Kim Bernard's research group. Learn more about their research here on Dr. Bernard's blog. Brenna McBride, Laboratory Research Assistant, October 2017 to June 2018. Brenna has a BS in Geology (OSU/CEOAS) and is currently working for the National Park Service.
Ellie Davidson, 2018 Summer REU Student. Ellie recently graduated from Cal State Sacramento with a BS in Geology. Ellis is a professional geologist.
Michael Felix, URSA Engage Participant, January 2018 – June 2018
Lab mascots: Daisy May and Beau Diggity Dog
About Lab PI Jenn Fehrenbacher: I'm an Associate Professor at Oregon State University in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. After earning a BS degree in Geology at Northern Illinois University I spent several years working as a Scientific Assistant at Argonne National Laboratory. I left science for a few years and worked as an IT Consultant (eCommerce). I opted to go back to graduate school in 2002, earning a MS degree in 2003 and a PhD in 2010. At the University of Chicago, my research focused on paleoceanography applications using fossil planktic forams from the Ontong Java Plateau and the Ceara Rise. After graduation, I spent 5 years working in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department as a post-doc. During my time at the U of California, Davis I participated in and co-led several field seasons culturing living foraminifera, and learned that I loved the interdisciplinary nature of working with living and fossil forams. I also was responsible for running the laser ablation system and developing the laser ablation protocols for the UCD Spero lab group and collaborators. In 2016 I began a tenure track faculty position at OSU. My primary research interests include present and past oceanography and climate change, biomineralization processes, and paleo-proxy and methods development.
Email: jennifer dot fehrenbacher at oregonstate dot edu