Dr. Shayla Williams removing an otolith from a young-of-the-year bluefish caught in the Hudson River estuary. NOAA/NMFS photo by Jennifer Samson.

Shayla Williams moved into a new world when she began work at the NEFSC’s James J. Howard Laboratory in the fall of 2001. The move to New Jersey brought the Florida A&M University doctoral student from the South to the North, from the campus to the work-day world, and from a university Environmental Sciences Institute to the NEFSC’s Ecosystems Processes Division (EPD).

The transitions were a challenge for the young Albany (Georgia) scientist, but with the help of veteran research chemist Dr. Ashok Deshpande, Williams settled in to the EPD’s Marine Chemistry Branch and began working on a study of bluefish and environmental contaminants.Four-and-one-half years later, Williams has finished her dissertation, received her doctorate in Environmental Sciences, and officially converted from a student employee to full-time NEFSC employee, stationed in Sandy Hook.

Williams made the journey from student to employee in NOAA’s Graduate Sciences Program, an effort to recruit and train outstanding minority students with an interest in NOAA-related sciences. Her stint as a student employee at the Sandy Hook laboratory was funded by NOAA’s Educational Partnership Program (EPP), and authorized under another federal initiative called the Student Career Experience Program (SCEP). Together the EPP and the SCEP provide students with paid work-study experiences, giving them a jump-start in their careers and a direct path to permanent employment with the government agency that helps train them.

Williams came to Sandy Hook after completing her Ph.D. coursework at Florida A&M, a university that partners with NOAA in EPPs. In her early days as an EPP/SCEP student, Williams encountered some of the baffling bureaucratic intricacies that can crop up when large institutions collaborate on multidisciplinary research programs.“I was looking for funding,” she remembered, citing one example of the difficulty of dealing with multiple administrative entities. “There were federal grants I couldn’t apply for because I was a student, and student grants I couldn’t apply for because I was a federal employee.”

“The EPP was new when Shayla came to Sandy Hook,” explained Dr. Ambrose Jearld, the NEFSC Director of Academic Programs. The various partners in the program – Florida A&M, the NEFSC, the EPP – had not established clear lines of responsibility.

At the time, Deshpande was acting chief of the Marine Chemistry Branch, the group that was hosting the NEFSC’s first EPP/SCEP student. “Ashok really took the bull by the horns,” Jearld said. “He talked to all the right people and got all the bureaucratic details ironed out.”

Dr. Ashok Deshpande, a research chemist in the Marine Chemistry Branch of the NEFSC's Ecosystems Processes Division. NOAA/NMFS photo by Shayla Williams.

Deshpande said the funding issues were sorted out when Jacqueline J. Rousseau, the NOAA EPP director, explained that EPP funding was available to support field work by SCEP student employees.

In addition to providing bureaucratic support, Deshpande provided research advice, helping Williams design a project that would provide data for a doctoral dissertation. The SCEP scientist ended up working with bluefish in the Hudson River estuary, a project that contributed to the Howard Laboratory’s long-running study of environmental contaminants.Bluefish spawn offshore in the late spring and summer. The larvae develop into juveniles in continental shelf waters. In June, the juveniles begin arriving in coastal nurseries. Voracious predators, the young bluefish spend the warm months in estuaries, feeding on a variety of fish and invertebrates, and growing as much as 2.2 millimeters per day. When the waters turn chilly in October and November, the fish leave the estuaries to migrate southward.

Many East Coast estuaries are contaminated with PCBs – human-made chemicals that were used in industrial and commercial processes before they were banned in 1977. Bluefish that spend their summers feeding in the estuaries ingest PCBs and accumulate them in their fatty tissue. They also accumulate inorganic metallic chemicals in their otoliths (small bones in their ears). Deshpande and other Sandy Hook scientists are exploring the idea that bluefish feeding in different estuaries will have different PCB signatures in their fatty tissues and differences in their otoliths that can serve as chemical fingerprints that reveal where individual fish have spent their summer.

Williams spent three years catching bluefish in different locations in the Hudson River estuary. When she analyzed their fatty tissues and otoliths, she found evidence that the fish do not migrate extensively within the estuary. She also found that the chemical profiles of Hudson River bluefish are distinguishable from profiles of bluefish in other, nearby estuaries. Her results may help fisheries scientists understand bluefish populations and may be useful in answering questions about which estuaries are important for bluefish stocks.

In 2004, with three years of data in hand, Williams faced another culture shock – the transition from data-gatherer to dissertation-writer. Fortunately, the young scientist was not unfamiliar with the world of writing – her father was an English professor (now retired) at Albany ( Georgia) State University.“Two years ago I was sitting in front of a blank screen,” Williams said, recalling a process that involved seemingly endless rounds of writing, rewriting, getting reviews, and making corrections. “I had one sentence when I started,” she said, “and now I have a 200 page document.”

Churning out that document was the next to last step in Williams’ journey to her Ph.D. The final step came March 20 when she defended her dissertation, “Bioaccumulation patterns of organochlorines in young-of-the-year bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) in the Hudson River Estuary."

“Defending it was the easy part,” she said. “I knew I could defend it. I had confidence in the data.”

With Williams’ dissertation complete and her Ph.D. in hand, the NEFSC has its first EPP SCEP program success story – a well-trained scientist capable of stepping right in to the Center’s research program. Deshpande and Williams are already collaborating on two papers, with Williams serving as first author on one.According to Deshpande, the NEFSC’s first SCEP alumnus is a serious and dedicated young scientist who has earned the respect of her colleagues in the EPD.

“Shayla learned many aspects of science while she was in the program,” Deshpande said. “She has experience collecting samples, analyzing data, interpreting data, and doing statistical analysis.”

Williams agrees that the EPP SCEP program is a winner. “I’d recommend it,” she said. “It is a way to get you into the system, and to help you make the transition from being a student to being a federal employee.”

The NEFSC has two other EPP/SCEP students working on graduate degrees. April Croxton is working with Gary Wikfors in the Center’s Biotechnology Branch in Milford, Connecticut. Croxton, like Williams, is a Florida A&M doctoral candidate. Larry Alade, a University of Maryland Eastern Shore Ph.D. candidate, works with the yellowtail flounder tagging group in the Center’s Woods Hole laboratory. Students who are interested in the Student Career Experience Program can get information on the government’s Office of Personnel Management site.

Information about NOAA’s EPP Graduate Student Program (GSP) is available on the EPP site. To be eligible for an EPP GSP-funded position, students must be enrolled in a graduate program in an academic institution partnering with NOAA in the EPP.

Questions about NEFSC work/study programs can be directed to Dr. Ambrose Jearld, NEFSC Director of Academic Programs.