Florence van Tulder, Student Researcher
B. Sc. Oceanography 2011
Florence van Tulder’s undergraduate experience has featured unique opportunities to engage in undergraduate research, lots of time on the water and a healthy dose of adventure.
Florence van Tulder’s undergraduate experience featured unique opportunities to engage in undergraduate research, lots of time on the water and a healthy dose of adventure. During Summer 2009, she spent five weeks at Friday Harbor Labs with time aboard the R/V Centennial taking an intense course in Marine Invertebrate Zoology, and in Summer 2010 she spent a month aboard the R/V Oscar Dyson in the Bering Sea as a volunteer on the BASIS (Bering Arctic Subarctic Integrated Survey) Cruise, where she was part of an oceanography team working on a fisheries survey funded primarily by NOAA.
Florence's Senior Thesis Cruise aboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson was located in the waters around Hawaii, where she studied the abundance and distribution of marine viruses and bacteria through the various ecotypes of the Hawaiian Islands.
When not sailing the high seas, Florence was the event coordinator for the Student Oceanographic Society (SOS), a club that provides opportunities for students to network with their peers and get to know professors, graduate students, and professionals in oceanography. She was also an undergraduate T.A. for Oceanography 101 and Oceanography 201, where she helped with the course labs and fielded student questions. And she volunteered in John Baross’s lab, working on culturing hydrothermal vent bacteria and archea and looking for the presence of viral-like particles.
And where is all of this hard work and adventure leading? “I want to be a high school marine science teacher,” says Florence. “The best teachers I have ever had were always the ones with the real life experience in the fields they taught in. I want to work in the field, to have adventures, and to experience as much of what it means to be a marine scientist before I go back to school to share what I’ve learned.
“I’m incredibly happy with the education I’ve received here at the UW, delighted with the adventures I’ve already had, and excited for the ones that are still coming.”
Originially published in the College of the Environment Newsletter, January 2011.
