NC State Center for Marine Sciences and Technology

Several NC State Veterinary Medicine students took a week-long Diseases of Marine Organisms course at CMAST. Dr. Tal Ben-Horin, Assistant Professor of Shellfish Pathology College of Veterinary Medicine, coordinated the course. Students are pictured in Bogue Sound behind CMAST.

Congratulations to Alex Roco @rocc_lobster who is now an NC State PhD Candidate in Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology!

CMAST graduate student Zakir Bulmer and UNC IMS graduate student Eve Eismann will lead an info session for all researchers who want to participate in the SciREN Coast Fair and Educator Open House. The free info session will be held in 205 CMAST.

CMAST Research Technician Melissa LaCroce, NC State Master's student John Brooks, and CMAST Director David Eggleston (not shown) recently tested a hand-held and mountable underwater sonar system (ARIS Defender 3000) to characterize fish assemblages residing on oyster reefs.

NC State Food Science Summer Scholars recently toured County Road Seafood in Belhaven, NC, where they observed blue crabs being safely processed and cooked. Students also toured NC State's Pamlico Field Lab, where they learned about aquaculture and breeding processes of fish.

Join the NC State Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) in recognizing World Sea Turtle Day! The Marine Health Program at CMAST supports efforts to improve sea turtle health and environmental concerns affecting them.

The 65th Annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament is underway! This event provides research opportunities for scientists across the country. For example, CMAST summer fellow, Sarah Smith is working with the Big Rock tournament to research microplastics that accumulate in the fish.

Last week, NC State students in a Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences course at CMAST @ncsu_blue_economy took a cruise on the RV, Capricorn, owned by UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. During the cruise, students piloted a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the ocean.

The North Carolina State Cooperative Extension hands-on cooking classes, “Hooked on Seafood" culminated last week with a presentation on safe seafood handling by NC State Seafood Lab director, Dr. Alex Chouljenko and research assistant, Greg Bolton.

Join Carteret County Cooperative Extension on Wednesday, June 7th from 10 a.m. - noon for a course in home canning. This free workshop, held at the Center of Marine Science and Technology (CMAST) in room 306, is designed to teach canning as a home food preservation method.

Drs. David Eggleston (CMAST Director) and Lewis Owen (Head of MEAS Department), along with Steve Broadhurst (Dive Safety Officer) taught a Study Abroad course during the Spring semester entitled, “Ecological and Geological Processes in an Immersive Scientific Diving Experience”.

On Friday, the AP Environmental Science class at Richlands High School toured CMAST. Instructor, Ashton Allgood-Batten, said, “We had an awesome tour by Dr. Carol Price, where we got to see ongoing research, visit part of the vet college, and learn about endangered Gopher frogs.

Alex Chouljenko, director of the NC State Seafood Lab at the Center for Marine Science and Technology (CMAST), and Greg Bolton, Seafood Lab research assistant, recently visited Raleigh to participate in two events they collaborated on with NC State Dining.

NC State Semester at CMAST students visited Bonehenge Whale Center recently for a tour led by Director Keith Rittmaster. Students learned about sperm whale hunting and sexual dimorphism, ship strikes, and entanglement mortality in North Atlantic right whales and humpback whales.

Congratulations to Dr. Tal Ben-Horin, NC State assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at CMAST! He has been selected as a recipient of the NC State University 2022 Outstanding Extension Award for substantial contributions to the NC shellfish industry.

While CMAST Director David Eggleston was conducting research on underwater soundscapes and movements of juvenile sharks with colleague Dr. Alex Hearn of the Galapagos Science Center, he was able to team up with NC State undergraduate students Madison Scholes and Emory Gardner.

Semester at CMAST students collect used monofilament along the Morehead City waterfront as part of the NC Monofilament Recovery and Recycling Program, which addresses the problem of protected marine wildlife becoming entangled in discarded monofilament fishing lines and nets.

Congratulations to Matt Damiano, recent NC State student (pictured), who successfully defended his dissertation in February. Damiano has secured a job with the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (CIMAS) as a Postdoctoral Associate at the NOAA Beaufort Lab.

The NC Seafood Lab at CMAST is researching methods using electrolyzed water to reduce the Vibrio bacteria content in oysters, which can cause food poisoning. Semester at CMAST student, Sam Merritt, is pictured calibrating equipment that tests for the Vibrio bacteria growth.

NC State Semester at CMAST student, Catherine Kirch, is using these viewing buckets to monitor threatened and endangered gopher frogs in hatchery tanks that the student conservation team is using for stock enhancement of local populations in the wild.