Dana Sanchez Email & Phone Number

Columbia, Md, Us

Annapolis, Maryland, United States

Annapolis, Maryland, United States

Working as a Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps (CCCC) Affiliate for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary. Mallows Bay is home to the most extensive collection of historic shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere, known as the "Ghost Fleet" of the Potomac, as well as a unique, biodiverse ecosystem that is supported by the wrecks. The work I will be doing during my year of service will directly impact the success of the sanctuary’s long-term research and monitoring goals and management decisions. Due to the valuable ecosystem services that submerged aquatic vegetation(SAV) provides to the sanctuary, my capstone project will be to create a day-long SAV community monitoring event to enhance our understanding of the SAV beds within Mallows Bay. Other projects include: analyzing SAV and acoustic telemetry data, creating maps and interpretive products, contributing to developing a virtual tour website, assisting with BioBlitz events, developing a volunteer network, and much more.

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

As a part of Dr. Tyler Groh's Watershed Management and Biogeochemistry Lab Group, I assisted on a project involving biochar impacts on physical soil properties, nutrient leaching, and infiltration in agricultural concentrated flow paths. My main responsibilities were to do soil infiltration tests and literature reviews as well as complete water quality sampling and processing. This included intensive fieldwork in and out of streams, working with landowners, and laboratory analysis.

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

As a teaching assistant I ran weekly discussions focused around the topic of fundamental soil properties and processes, educated students on analytical procedures for soil assessment, testing, and interpretation and graded assignments.

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

As a part of Dr. Jason Kaye's Biogeochemistry Lab Group at Penn State, I assisted in studying sustainable agriculture with cover crops and reduced tillage surrounding research with the Chesapeake Bay. I conducted lab procedures by preparing samples and operating lab equipment to collect data. Duties included: extracting inorganic nitrogen from soil samples using potassium chloride, determining rock fractions, preparing plant and soil samples for elemental testing, creating solutions or reagents for tests, micro plating samples, and plant biomass data entry. I also assisted in installing Eosense automated soil flux chambers and decagon soil matrix sensors in a forested riparian zone to analyze carbon dioxide respiration and ecosystem processes. I further downloaded and collected vital Licor and Eosense field data electronically and in laboratory notebooks.

Cambridge, Maryland, United States

Selected for highly competitive Research Experience for Undergraduates program from a pool of over 400 applicants. In this project, I participated in field surveys and ran lab experiments to investigate rates of benthic nitrogen fixation at sites on Susquehanna Flats (SF) with varying amounts of submersed aquatic vegetation and potentially toxic cyanobacteria abundance during two different times in the growing season, in early June and late July. In addition to investigating the different parameters of water quality that may affect Lyngbya-induced nitrogen fixation on SF. The data will then be incorporated into the Chesapeake Bay nutrient management budgets and SAV bed modeling which is used to make restoration management and policy decisions.I have done extensive fieldwork on the Chesapeake Bay taking submerged aquatic vegetation and Lyngbya surveys on a boat and while snorkeling. I have done water quality sampling for pH, light availability, DO, turbidity, and temperature. While also filtering and processing TSS and chlorophyll-a samples. I also performed bioassay experiments to examine photosynthetic and nitrogen-fixation responses to increased nutrient levels. I then enter and manage the lab data generated from the tests. When I was not conducting fieldwork or in the lab, I was compiling and analyzing data from multiple sources using statistical analysis in R Studio and Excel.

Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, United States

Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, United States

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

Shillington, Pennsylvania, United States

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Environmental Science, Cum Laude - 3.8 Gpa

Activities and Societies: Pasto's Agricultural Museum Stormwater workshop (host and educator), Soil Judging Team (member), Shaver's Creek.

Associates Of Arts - Aa, Multidisciplinary Studies, Life Sciences, Magna Cum Laude - 4.0 Gpa

Graduated Magna Cum Laude with an A.A. in Multidisciplinary Studies with a focus in Life Sciences.