Virginia Biede Email & Phone Number

I am a motivated graduate student interested in deep sea ecology. Currently at Florida State University investigating cold water stony corals in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands and Emperor Seamount Chain. During the summer of 2019 I contributed to the benthic research at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. I used Station M. time series data set to investigate community changes over an 8 year time period. This used the annotating software VARS as well as statistical analysis in R. I completed my research program at the University of Southampton at the National Oceanographic Centre in September 2018 with a Masters of Research in Oceanography. A research degree emphasized individual led research culminating in a final thesis project. I investigated the impacts of a pipeline on a soft sediment community between 700 and 1800m using video annotation of industry ROV recordings and statistical analysis in R and PRIMER. May 2018 I participated in a research cruise to the Porcupine Abyssal Plain- Sustained Observatory as a part of the benthic team. Duties included collection of sediment cores via Megacore, specimen collection via amphipod traps, hauls, and cores, as well as general lab maintenance and assistance to the pelagic team with zooplankton specimen collection. Previously I worked on commercial fishing vessels as a fisheries observer in the Bering Sea totaling 5 years experience. Lab experience includes coursework and a REU at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center within the Semester by the Sea program. From Maine to Alaska to the UK I have investigated ecology and hope to continue in this field particularly within the deep sea. As my program in the UK concludes I hope to find a research position in which I can continue to investigate the ecology of the deep.