CONWAY, Ark. (April 23, 2013) – Meredith Miles, a 2012 Hendrix graduate recently
returned from a two-month science cruise in Antarctica.
Miles is a first-year graduate student studying biogeochemistry in the Hansell
Lab at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
"Lucky for me, my first significant research cruise has brought me to a region
of the world more mysterious and wonderful than I could have ever imagined," Miles
wrote in her blog. "I spend a portion of my time learning from other research
groups on board as a crash course in Oceanography 101 but I also have my own responsibilities
in the lab."
"Primarily, I collect seawater samples from a device that collects water from
great depths (called CTD rosette) to analyze ‘nuts’ or nutrients (namely phosphate,
silicic acid and nitrate), which are essential players in the biochemistry of the
Ross Sea," she added.
Read the cruise blog or
watch a video about the project!
"Traditionally, chemistry has been seen as a field in which you spend long hours
behind fume hoods inside the confounds of a laboratory," said Hendrix chemistry
professor Dr. Courtney Hatch, who was Miles’ undergraduate research advisor. "Today,
students are beginning to find out that chemistry is all around us. The environment
holds so many unknown and significant mysteries just waiting to be discovered."
"Considering the complexity of our environment, we cannot simply rely on controlled
experiments in the lab to shed light on these anymore," Hatch added. "Having to
actually go to where the science is, no matter how exotic, is just an added bonus."
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and
sciences education. For the fifth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the
country’s "Up and Coming" liberal arts colleges by
U.S. News and World Report.
Hendrix is featured in the 2012 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country’s
best 377 colleges, the latest edition of
Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools
That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges,
Forbes magazine's
annual list of America's Top 650 Colleges, and the 2013 edition of the Fiske Guide
to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since
1884. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.