Student Speak

Summer 2006

Name: Corinne D'Ippolito
Class: Junior
Major: Marine science and history
Hometown: Boulder, Colo.

You recently won a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hollings Scholarship. Tell us about the award. The Hollings Scholarship is an undergraduate scholarship that provides tuition support for junior and senior year and a paid internship for the summer between junior and senior year. It's an open-ended internship. The scholars get to select their own NOAA site anywhere in the country, working on any variety of topics. If you can find someone at NOAA who's working on something you're interested in, you're pretty much allowed to work with them. It's going to be an interesting experience, I think. I'll do my internship next summer.

What kind of internship would you like to do? I had an internship last summer that dealt with paleoclimate reconstruction. We were reconstructing the intensity of the southwest Asian summer monsoon. That was actually with a scientist who works for NOAA in Boulder. So, I'll probably try to work at that same facility next summer, doing more paleoclimate work.

How did you become interested in paleoclimatology? It was kind of random that I found the internship at NOAA last summer. I wanted to do something related to science at home. I started e-mailing people, and the name of the scientist I worked with last summer and his e-mail got sent back to me. Then when we started e-mailing back and forth, his research sounded interesting. When it comes to modern climate change, it's important to put what's going on today in a historical context. Paleoclimatology can be multidisciplinary in that it utilizes both historical records--including travel logs, diaries, and human observations concerning information such as what plants bloomed where and when, where civilizations moved, and when droughts affected certain regions--and oceanography because of the variety of paleoclimate proxies that are housed by the ocean. It appeals to both my love of science and history.

Do you plan to continue working in paleoclimate reconstruction after you graduate? I can see myself pursuing it, but I can't say I'm 100 percent sure yet. I still have some time to decide, but it does appeal to me quite a lot.

Are you involved in any undergraduate research projects on campus? I've worked in labs the last two years. During freshman year, I worked in Doug Williams' lab for three of his graduate students. This year, I gained experience by working in Bob Thunell's lab. I processed samples for the lab/graduate students, and I became more familiar with various procedures, pieces of equipment, and techniques used by the lab.

You just got back from Greece and Turkey. Was that part of the study abroad program? The Honor's College had a Maymester class that went to Greece and Turkey. When I came to USC, they gave me a travel grant as part of my scholarship. I had to use it this summer, and going to Greece and Turkey was a pretty appealing way to do that.

What was the subject of the class? Most people on the trip took a spring Honors College seminar that looked at the religious and cultural history or Greece and Turkey. Then the Maymester was the cultural component. I didn't take the spring class, but the point of the trip was to see today the areas that are steeped in historical mythology and religious history.

What do they look like now? Part of the purpose of the class was to see some of the ruins and to try to get a sense of the people and how they interact with each other. We had to do a long travel journal on different issues that came up as we went from place to place.

What are your summer plans? Because I added a history major, there are a couple of general education requirements I have to get out of the way; so, I'll be taking a couple of classes at the University of Colorado. Then I'll be working a little bit with the NOAA scientist I worked with last summer, trying to put a paper together for publication. I'll also be working some generic summer jobs to raise some cash because I'll be studying abroad in Scotland next fall and spring.

6/06