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Tony DiGirolamo Hello, my name is Tony. I am 26, and I will be a diver on the Day Boat Crew at the NURC/UNCW Lab with Dr. Kevin Beach. I am a recent graduate of the University of Tampa, where I received my Bachelor's degree with a double major in Marine Science/Biology and a minor in Chemistry. At the moment I am planning a year off from school to study for the GREs and to put in my applications to graduate schools. I plan to eventually pursue a PhD in Elasmobranch biology (sharks and rays for you non-chondricthyans), with an emphasis in population genetics, behavior, or fisheries management. I am a student member of the American Elasmobranch Society (AES), the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH), the Southeastern Estuarine Research Society (SEERS), and a new Associate Member of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences. As for my experience, I have been diving for about five years and I am an Advanced Open Water Diver with PADI. Most recently I have spent time this summer and all of last summer at Dr. Sonny Gruber's Bimini Biological Field Station in Bimini, Bahamas. While there I was able to get some excellent hands-on experience working with lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) in the field at Bimini, as well as getting the opportunity to spend three weeks aboard Harbor Branch Oceanographic's R/V Sea Diver in the Marquesas Keys. For four months during 2000 I was a Husbandry Intern at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, FL. While there I was in charge of preparing diets and feeding all of the sharks, rays and turtles in the aquarium's collection. Before transferring to the University of Tampa, I attended Broward Community College (BCC) in my hometown of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. For approximately three years I was involved in a joint research project between BCC and Florida International University (FIU) studying comparative immunology of the nurse shark, Ginglymostoma cirratum. During the summer of 1999 I spent two weeks at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, TX with fellow BCC students as part of JSC's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. Myself and other BCC students designed and built an experiment to test the possibilities of separating immiscible fluids in reduced gravity by the use of acoustic sound waves. We all eventually got to fly with and run our experiment in reduced gravity aboard NASA's KC-135A Reduced Gravity Aircraft (better know to astronauts as "the vomit comet"). Finally, during the summer of 1996 I spent time as a volunteer at the Juno Beach Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, FL doing nesting surveys of sea turtles. Well, that's about it. If you're interested in sharks, any of the work I've done, or would like to chat, you can reach me at elasmotony@hotmail.com. |
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