November 30, 2007, Friday McMurdo Station, Antarctica
Special Edition to the Daily Journal: Meet the Team
April Gossmann
I would like to introduce you to the members of the B-518 Environmental Monitoring Team who are part of this project this year. The PI (Principal Investigator) is Dr. Chuck Kennicutt. He is well known down here for his research and discoveries. However, he is back at College Station and has left this year’s data collection in the hands of the rest of the people you saw on the front page for the project.
The newest member of this project is April Gossmann. April is young enough to have been one of my students just a few years ago! April is from Mesquite, Texas and attended Poteet High School. She was on the drill team and a member of peer helpers with local elementary students. April went to Texas State University in San Marcos and majored in Marine Biology. This wasn’t just so she had an excuse to float down the river all the time. While at Texas State she was a member of the Marine Biology association and participated in the annual beach cleanups at Galveston and Mustang Island.
April is a volunteer with the Texas State Aquarium working with the dolphins and the birds. She is a member of the Texas Marine Stranding Network. This past summer she worked in Anchorage, Alaska with the Alaska Marine Stranding Network and worked with seals, birds and otters. She describes the otters as way too cute but also as little devil children. Apparently they sleep in cribs and are bottle fed. Not to mention spoiled because they are trained to go to the bathroom in a bucket of water so they will scream to get out of the crib to go to the bathroom. April describes them as very precious but worse then 2 infant children.
April works with Terry at Texas A&M Corpus Christi campus in the marine biology research lab. She is helping Terry processes the marine samples as well as working with the collection of the terrestrial samples.
Little known facts about April…. She minored in psychology- that always helps to better understand what those baby otters are thinking about.
April also has a pet red eared slider- this is an 8yr. Old turtle who is staying with his grandmother right now.
She also took Spanish for 7 years but says it only is good in Mexico.
Comments