Knowing how well the SUL grapevine works, many of you will have already heard about my upcoming summer adventure.  About a month ago, one of the Hopkin's faculty members, Professor Fio Micheli, offered me the opportunity to help with research projects on Palmyra Atoll in the South Pacific.  This is a small U.S. territory (less than 5 square miles of land) located about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii.  I will be working with a former Hopkins Marine Station graduate student, helping him install 180 coral settlement plates on the outer reef.  I will also be helping one of Fio's postdocs place acoustic tags on grey reef sharks.

I leave on July 21 and will be away for a month.  Don Kohrs and Vicki Pearse will keep the Miller Library running while I am gone.  Despite being in one of the most remote places on earth, there is WiFi.  I hope to be able to check my email once a day in the evening.

This is an amazing opportunity to SCUBA dive on one of the few remaining pristine coral reefs in the world and interact with other teams of scientists from UC Santa Barbara and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.   

If you are interested in knowing more about the trip, check out the blog I started to document my trip.  The URL is: http://palmyralibrarian.blogspot.com/.

There won't be a lot of photos until I actually get there, but right now, I am writing up the process of preparing for the trip.