During final week at the Marine Institute I worked on the National Crayfish Plague Surveillance Programme by conducting field sampling, eDNA extraction, and running rt-PCR.

During my eighth week at the Marine Institute I attended a workshop at the Ballinderry River’s Trust in Cookstown, Northern Ireland on the FWPM Breeding Programme and the conservation efforts for freshwater species in the Catchment.

During my seventh week at the Marine Institute I spent a few days at the Newport Research Centre learning about otolith and scale reading, the genetic makeup of the wild salmon population in the Burrishoole, and the rearing of ranched smolts.

During my sixth week at the Marine Institute I spent time working with the OCIS service area learning about seabed mapping programmes, like INFOMAR, and their applications for marine biology and beyond.

During my fifth week at the Marine Institute I spent time with the Fish Health Unit learning about histology and molecular biology.

During my fourth week at the Marine Institute I worked closely with the shellfish safety teams and learned about phytoplankton taxonomy, issues regarding Harmful Algal Blooms in Irish waters, and how biotoxin extraction and analysis are completed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).

During my third week at the Marine Institute I spent time with the Aquaculture teams learning about sea lice taxonomy and assessment of operational welfare indices at finfish site.

During my my second week at the Marine Institute I began working on a research project to develop a screening tool for 70+ bird species which will be used in relation to reviewing Appropriate Assessment (AA) reports.

During my first week at the marine institute I learned about environmental monitoring, aquaculture licensing, and common finfish parasites.