Achievement

As a participant in an NSF sponsored Marine Biology course at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, IGERT Trainee Dennis Evangelista discovered the mechanisms of anchor ice information and propagation. Anchor ice can act as a disturbance in shallow water benthic communities. Dennis showed how surface tissue characteristics such as surface area, rugosity, and mucus coating affect ice formation on invertebrates. These discoveries have potential for biologically-inspired designs to limit ice formation, such as on airplane wings, ship and marine structures, etc. In conducting this research from Antarctica, Dennis reached out to 3rd graders at PS 23 Mahatma Gandhi Elementary School in Jersey City, NJ, an inner-city, federally funded Title I school and served as their scientist on the ice.