I was a research technician and participated in a number of research projects at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. In 1993-1996, I worked with Dr. Rebecca Sharitz on a project to examine wetland restoration. Our research was specifically related to the natural recovery of a floodplain forest on the Savannah River Site (SRS). Thirty years of hot water discharges from a nuclear reactor severely damaged a bottomland hardwood and swamp forest at the U.S. Department of Energy's SRS near Aiken, S.C. After the reactor shut down, we studied the natural recovery of the wetland forest. We used color-infrared aerial photography and computer-based geographic information systems to examine the reinvasion of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs) in about 160 acres of the damaged wetland forest. We determined that about 4 percent of the area was covered with woody species in 1985, compared with 34 percent in 1990 and 52 percent in 1993. Many of the trees and shrubs reinvading the damaged area are situated near adjacent undamaged forests that may have served as seed sources.

I also worked in the DNA Lab at SREL on a project to determine, via hybridization, the relative amount of Eubacteria containing the sMMO gene in DNA extracted from aquatic sediment samples. I used the Molecular Lab to quantify DNA, amplify the X-subunit of the sMMO gene, sequence the amplicon, and transform E. coli with a vector containing the sequence.

Indirect selection for antibiotic-resistant bacteria by heavy metal exposure