We have a great crew of interns helping us out this summer. They help with field work for all our projects, help with lab processing, and work on their individual projects. Please read below to learn more about them and the projects they are working on this summer.
Samantha (Sam) Wander
Sam is an undergraduate at The Ohio State University majoring in Agriscience Education. Her career plans are to become an agricultural educator and an FFA advisor. Sam joins our lab through the OARDC Research Internship Program (ORIP). For her summer project, she will be compiling previously collected data to investigate nitrogen stabilizer effects on fertilizer. Specifically, her goals are to determine if nitrogen stabilizers improve crop yields, investigate nitrogen rate and timing efficacy when used with stabilizers, and to define effects of nitrification inhibitors when used with nitrogen sources. She will be with us until August 4th and will present her research August 2nd as part of the ORIP Symposium at the Wooster Campus.
Nakian Kim
Nakian is a senior majoring in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is participating in the OARDC Research Internship Program (ORIP) and will be with us until August. As part of his work with our lab, Nakian will be studying nutrient removal by grain and will be using our previously collected data on grain nutrient concentrations to perform his analysis. He will be looking for correlations between grain yield and amount of nutrient removed when grain is harvested. His work contributes to a larger lab project, Updating Fertilizer Recommendations. Nakian will be presenting his research on August 2nd as part of the ORIP Symposium at the Wooster campus.
Madison Campbell
Madison is entering her sophomore year at ATI where she majors in agronomy. She is interested in agronomic research and is using her internship to explore potential career paths. Her research with our lab is on nutrient uptake by soybeans and corn. Her project examines changes in nutrient contents in both soil and plants at different growing points in the season. As part of her project, Madison will be creating an extension publication to share the results of her work. Madison will be working with us part-time through the academic year while she continues her studies at ATI.
Otto José Oppenheimer
Otto has finished his fourth year of study at the Mayagüez Campus of University of Puerto Rico. He is an agronomy major planning to continue his education to earn a doctorate in soils and would like to work as a researcher and professor at his alma mater upon completion of his degree. While working with our lab, Otto will be evaluating soil organic carbon tests. He will be investigating the relationships between permanganate-oxidizable carbon (POXC), a relatively new test, and loss on ignition (LOI), a test widely used in laboratories, and their analytical variability in measuring soil organic carbon. He will be with us till the end of July and will be presenting his research in Wooster on July 24th and in Columbus on July 28th as part of the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) summary conference.
Meredith Mann
Meredith recently graduated from the College of Wooster earning her B.A. in Geology. She is interested in exploring the biogeochemical relationships of soil and working with organic farms. Currently, Meredith is assisting with data management and analysis on our lab’s Fertilizer Recommendations Project, which aims to update current soil testing methods and further understand the complex connection between fertilization and grain yield response. Outside of the lab, you can find her playing frisbee and/or eating the strangest foods she can find. Meredith will be staying with our lab through the academic year.