Image: Lydia (Meg) Babcock-Adams, a student in the Medeiros lab, successfully defended her thesis “ELUCIDATING NATURAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC MARINE PROCESSES USING MOLECULAR BIOMARKERS” on April 15, 2016. Her thesis explores the use of both nonpolar and polar biomarker analysis of environmental samples to track inputs, transport, and transformations of organic carbon in the marine environment. Meg investigated levels and distribution patterns of oil-derived compounds in Gulf of Mexico sediments following the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred in April 2010. She also analyzed coral tissue samples in order to characterize biomarker indicators of stress and/or recovering conditions following a major bleaching event in 1997-1998 during the strongest El Niño on record. Congrats Meg!
