Activities between Summer 2015 and Spring 2016

A lot has happened since the 2015 summer interns left the museum. Two former interns traveled to GSA in Baltimore to present posters on projects completed during their time at the American Museum of Natural History and there is a new intern here for the spring.

Lindsay Walker and Shaun Mahmood both made the trip to the 2015 GSA Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lindsay presented a poster titled “Workflow for Conserving and Digitizing Historic Microfossil Collections at the American Museum of Natural History.” Her presentation focused on the conservation efforts and rehousing techniques used by the interns throughout this microfossil project. https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2015AM/webprogram/Paper263981.html

Shaun’s poster presentation, “3D-Printing Microfossils” was focused on the processes used from start to finish in the CT scanning, imaging, and printing of selected holotype microfossils at the museum. https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2015AM/webprogram/Paper265890.html

A student at University of Chicago, Katalina Kimball, presented a poster titled “Live/Dead Comparisons of Ostracodes in Temperate Lakes Reveal Evidence of Humans: Low Fidelity in Impacted Lakes, but High Fidelity in Remediated Lakes,” To add a visual aid to her presentation, Katalina requested an stl file of an ostracod created here by one of our interns, which was then 3D printed at her university. It's great to see how the work being done here is helping out scientists at other institutions.
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2015AM/webprogram/Paper267836.html

In order to CT scan and image more microfossils, a new intern is here for 20 weeks from February through June.

Kelsey Barnhill graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BA in Geology and a minor in Marine Science in December 2015. During her time as an undergraduate she studied abroad at Universidad de Oviedo (where she took her first Paleontology course- In Spanish!), spent a semester at UNC’s field-based Institute of Marine Science, and was a 2-year Division 1 Varsity letter winner in Women’s Fencing. The San Diego native will be spending her summer as a science intern aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus as a member of The Ocean Exploration Trust’s Corps of Exploration. Kelsey will begin working towards her Paleontology M.S. this fall at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology where she will also be cataloging and digitizing part of their invertebrate fossil collection under a research assistantship position.