Kateri Salk recently participated in the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) fellowship program. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this program provides graduate students with the opportunity to conduct original research in an international setting.

Salk, a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University, studies how environmental factors affect how nutrients are processed in aquatic environments. As a continuation of this research, Salk traveled to Australia for her EAPSI fellowship. Following an orientation to Australian science, policy, and culture hosted by the Australian Academy of Science, she spent two months at Southern Cross University in the Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry. Her research examined how bacterial communities in coastal sediments respond to changing environmental conditions, such as carbon supply and nutrient availability. Specifically, Salk was interested in the competitive relationship among microbes that use nitrogen as an energy source and how it relates to the production of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. These microbial community interactions have implications for the capacity of valuable, yet sensitive, ecosystems like seagrass beds, estuaries, and mangroves to respond to human-driven changes. Thanks to EAPSI, Salk was able to access the unique field sites, analytical instrumentation, and professional expertise housed at Southern Cross University.

For more information on this research and reflections on the Aussie coastal lifestyle, check out Kateri’s EAPSI blog post here.