Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center

Summer Internship Program 2009

The Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center (LMRCSC), was established in October, 2001 through a cooperative agreement between the NOAA Educational Partnership Program (NOAA-EPP), the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), Delaware State University (DSU), Hampton University (HU), Savannah State University (SSU) the University of Miami (UM/RSMAS) and UMBI-COMB with alignment to the National Marine Fisheries Service line office (NMFS). UMES is the lead institution, under the overall directorship of Dr. Paulinus Chigbu (UMES). The mission of the LMRCSC is to prepare minority students for careers in research, management, and public policy that support the sustainable harvest and conservation of our nation's living marine resources. The training of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels is promoted by collaborative research projects between the partners and NOAA-NMFS in areas congruent with the interests of NOAA Fisheries. The mission is pursued through the following goals:

Generation of a pool of minority scholars entering the field of marine sciences and fisheries
Enhancement of marine research and academic program capacities of the LMRCSC minority serving partner institutions
Enhancement of the research programs in the marine sciences at partner institutions

The initial LMRCSC funding, which began in 2001, was for five years. In 2006, the funding was renewed for a further five years. Each partner receives a core budget from this award plus additional funding for small collaborative research projects available on a competitive basis. Dr. Rosemary Jagus serves as the UMBI-COMB PI and director of the COMB-LMRCSC program. Under her sponsorship Dr. Eric May (LMRCSC Distinguished Research Scientist, UMES) and Dr. Joseph Pitula (UMES) have affiliate faculty positions at UMBI-COMB. COMB's role in the partnership is to bring the molecular toolbox to the partner institutions to address research questions in fisheries and essential fisheries habitat and afford training in molecular approaches and aquaculture to undergraduate and graduate students and to provide research enrichment to partner faculty and their students. The efforts of Dr. Jagus and Dr. Eric May (UMES) were recognized in 2005 by a USM Regents Award for collaboration in teaching and to Dr. Joe Okoh, the UMES founding Director of the LMRCSC in 2008. With LMRCSC funding, UMBI-COMB provides a summer internship program for minority undergraduates directed by D. Jagus and is currently training five minority Ph.D. students.

COMB-LMRCSC Activities 

COMB's LMRCSC program supports undergraduate research experiences with stipends and travel funds and graduate training through stipends, tuition and science-related travel. Since its inception, the COMB-LMRCSC has operated an intensive inquiry-based Summer Research Program for minority undergraduates. Over the last six years, this summer program has trained over 80 minority undergraduate interns from a variety of institutions including UMES, UMBC, Morgan State University, Hampton University, Delaware State University, Savannah State University, and Coppin State University. COMB-LMRCSC has also supported three minority masters students, Michelle Harmon (graduated '03, Sowers), Megan Morrison (graduated '04, Schreier), Samala B. Lewis (graduated '03, Place), and has supported/partially supported minority Ph.D. students Jose Reyes (expected '09, Zohar), Naomi Montalvo (expected '09, Hill), Kate Gillespie (expected '11, Sowers), Jeanette Davis (expected '12, Hill) and Ammar Hanif (expected '13, Schott). In addition, COMB faculty are/have co-mentored LMRCSC graduate students at partner institutions, Shanna Chambliss (DSU, Place), Lara Nagle (UMES, Jagus/Place), Donald Bacoat (RSMAS, Jagus), Lonnie Gonsalvez (UMES, Jagus). Since 2004, COMB faculty have also partnered with LMRCSC partners in 18 LMRCSC-funded research projects.

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