Summer Spotlight: Marjorie Johnson, Volleyball

Waterville, Maine – Introducing Colby Athletics’ summer spotlight series, where we take a look into what Colby student-athletes are working on over the summer break. Up first is rising junior Marjorie Johnson of Colby Volleyball. This summer Marjorie has been partaking in an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at Bigelow Laboratories for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine.

Bigelow is an independent, non-profit research institute whose mission is to use innovative approaches to study the foundation of global ocean health and unlock its potential to improve the future for all life on our planet. At her REU there are 18 other interns who are spending the summer at a beautiful residence hall located right next to the state of art laboratory. Each one of them, including Marjorie, are working in different areas of specialties from using code to study and track jellyfish populations to researching oil spill emulsification. They are all getting hands-on experience conducting their own research with a senior research scientist as our mentor. Marjorie has been working in Christoph Aeppli’s lab studying the current and historical trends of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in marine sediment cores in midcoast Maine.

“It has been such an inspiring experience to be able to do hands-on research on a topic that has such important health and environmental implications,” said Johnson. “It is such an amazing experience to be interning at a laboratory that is working to solve some of the world’s most complex issues. It’s also not too shabby spending my summer on Maine’s coastline and getting to not only explore Maine but experience a Maine Summer.”

Be on the lookout for more of our summer spotlight series.