Author Archives: Rena Ouyang

What a summer. I originally applied to BSURF because I wanted to explore my options with biological science research and career pathways – and that is absolutely what was fostered through this program. These eight weeks have absolutely flown by, with all of the research, meetings, and fun activities that makes BSURF such a unique experience. From canoeing on the Eno River and climbing the Duke Chapel, to eating popcorn for breakfast and having late night hangouts in Swift Apartments, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here this summer. And of course, this program would not be what it is without the invaluable knowledge and expertise I gained from my research and weekly seminars. I treasure the growth I have experienced in just two months, as well as the friends I have made along the way (and who will remain so).

I really appreciate this wonderful opportunity, and I could not imagine having done anything else for my summer. Being surrounded by my extremely qualified and caring peers created an exceptional learning environment, filled with discussion and also fun and laughs.

Thank you BSURF for making my summer so extraordinary and for connecting me with friends, mentors, researchers, and faculty that truly care about undergraduate research and bettering society with science. Thank you for allowing me to explore and branch out. I am honored to be a Biological Science Undergraduate Research Fellow.

(and now, if you ever need someone to identify aquatic macroinvertebrates for you, just call me up!)

Dr. Charmaine Royal started off the BSURF program with our first faculty talk, and she really set the bar for the rest of the program. I have gained increasing interest in the intersection of biology and systemic racism since learning about disproportionate lead poisoning effects on historically redlined and poor neighborhoods, as well as taking a critical race theory in education course first semester.

Her work with the intersection of healthcare and racism is incredibly inspiring, not only in its impact, but in her ability to combine her two passions into her career and research. As someone who is currently struggling to streamline my interests into a career path, it is truly uplifting to see a woman of color studying all that she loves and succeeding all the while.

I am honored to have listened to her speak, even if it was only for one hour – I hope to speak to her more in the future. Her work gives me hope for the future of genetics, medicine, and spreading awareness about and working towards deconstructing systemic racism.

Bugs as bioindicators: what aquatic macroinvertebrates reveal about ecotoxicology

Rena Ouyang

Mentors: Behrens, Jonathan, Bernhardt, Emily, Ph.D. Department of Biology

Aquatic macroinvertebrates hold high importance in food webs, spending their larval and nymph stages in water before emerging out of the water as adults. Thus, these freshwater organisms can be indicative of water quality and stressors present within their ecosystems. Specifically, the effects of chemical pollution on macroinvertebrates in urban streams begs further research. We hypothesized that as the amount of water pollution decreases, these ecosystems can support higher density, size, and biodiversity. We focused on three sites in Durham, North Carolina over the course of one year: two sites along a creek heavily impacted by development and one reference site in a highly preserved forest. We expected to see variations in macroinvertebrates present with seasonal changes, but we still observed a general trend of biodiversity and size increasing with decreased contamination. The count of organisms yielded more complex results, as more polluted areas in certain months appeared to have higher density. However, when we apply a more holistic and in-depth approach, we consider that this increase in number does not necessarily constitute successful emergence. Therefore, this research suggests that higher water quality encourages more diversity and survival of aquatic macroinvertebrates, and therefore, other organisms in their ecosystems.

I will be discussing about Natalia’s chalk talk about chronic pain in mice. Essentially, Natalia talked about translational pain medicine in terms of short-term and chronic pain alike. The idea of chronic pain is interesting because while pain should be survival mechanism to alert the body of any issues, chronic pain does not serve this purpose accurately and can instead cause neuropathy and/or nerve damage.

It was really interesting to see that there would be a sexual dimorphism in treating the stem cells from bone marrow of male and female mice. The first time I heard about bone marrow was in high school, and while I am not absolutely certain of the research or its procedures, I remember seeing a study on bone marrow cells potentially being converted as sperm cells for reproductive purposes. Again, I am not sure of this accuracy or any relevancy to Natalia’s project, the uses for bone marrow are intriguing to me.

I also liked that Natalia broke down and defined a lot of her terms, such as “immunohistochemistry”  defining it into three parts as antibodies, tissues, and reaction. In this way, it was easier to follow what she was discussing, and I found her chalk talk very informative and applicable.

A day in my lab typically starts off with sitting in front of a microscope. I put in my earbuds to listen to music that keeps me in the zone. I put on gloves and prepare to inspect a sample from a local creek in Durham underneath the microscope: counting, measuring, and identifying insects. I take my lunch break after I get to a good stopping point (ideally when I have worked my way through a sample), and afterwards, I pick up where I left off and continue to count my insects, recording data in an Excel spreadsheet throughout.

Other days include field work, waking up in the early hours to beat the Durham summer heat to set up traps or collect water samples in the creeks nearby. I really enjoy these mornings (other than the number of mosquito bites I receive) because I get to spend some time in the field, out and about and collecting data that I will later get to analyze and learn about in the lab itself later on.

I check in with my mentor every day, giving progress reports, showing him my findings, and collaborating with him in identifying insects and figuring out logistics of my BSURF summer project. Some days, he also takes me to the river center or the environmental engineering building to help with some lab work or to observe different kinds of machinery in the other buildings.

My lab also has weekly meetings, where we identify our goals for the week and address our goals from previous weeks as well. I get to hear about other scientists’ research during these meetings and meet new people pretty regularly, so I really enjoy sitting and absorbing the information that is offered to me through these meetings. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy my lab work, as it is work that I feel relaxed about and enjoy.

My mentor this summer is Dr. Emily Bernhardt, a genuine, kind, and established scientist who also happens to be the chair of the Duke University Biology Department. In these first three weeks of BSURF, I have gotten to know her a little bit more, especially through weekly meetings and setting weekly and semester-long goals (so-called “frogs”). I was able to talk one-on-one with her this past week regarding her passion for ecosystems ecology and biogeochemistry in relation to pollution and environmental stressors.

Many undergraduates come to college either not knowing what they want to do, or being absolutely dead-set on a pathway initially but then changing their plan completely throughout their education. Dr. Bernhardt, on the other hand, knew exactly what she wanted to do in her undergraduate education and kept with it: ecology. In her words, she has “never met anyone who actually wanted to do [ecology] at that stage.” She has always loved the outdoors and camping, while also maintaining interest in water quality and ecosystems. She also had a neighbor growing up who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in WWII; this neighbor had collected different species throughout her travels and also other insects and plants, displaying many of them to Dr. Bernhardt. The only thing that changed slightly from her undergraduate experience at UNC  Chapel Hill to her graduate education at Cornell University was focusing on rivers rather than wetlands, but she still studies wetlands to this day.

Dr. Bernhardt said to me, “It could be that I’m remarkably uncreative because I just kind of decided this is something I wanted to do, and I just did it…I just knew.” I personally disagree with the statement that she is uncreative – she has found and still continues to find new ways to involve herself in academia and within university affairs. When I asked her why she decided to become a department chair, she described a year-long teaching for equity class she had taken that primarily taught anti-racism. She believes “it’s not enough to not just yourself cause harm – you have to actively do what you can to make things better.” She feels that by being a department chair, she has a lot more say in implementing these anti-discriminatory actions. She also strongly affirms: “It’s time. We gotta shift the demographics of the faculty so they look more like – well, America, but let’s start with looking more like our student body.”

All in all, I am really inspired by the work that Dr. Bernhardt does, in both her research and her involvement in representation and university functions. She is passionate and dedicated to her work, and her support of undergraduate research is also very obvious; not only does she support BSURF students like me, but also several Data Plus teams. Although I have only known her for three weeks, she has been nothing but open and willing to answer any questions I may have. It is very important to have people like Dr. Bernhardt in academia, science, and overall decision-making and influential positions, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with her and in her lab.

This summer, I am working with the Bernhardt Lab, a lab focused on aquaterrestrial biogeochemistry. Essentially, this entails ecology, ecosystems, and ecotoxicology. My contribution to the lab is helping sample, count, and identify aquatic macroinvertebrates in local streams, creeks, and watersheds as bioindicators for water quality and stressors (like pollutants) present at different sites.

My project specifically concerns three different creeks, one of which is largely forested with minimal pollution, and the other two are more urbanized and polluted. Of these latter two, one is located before a waste water treatment plant, and the other is placed after the waste water treatment plant empties out its treated water. I will be counting and identifying aquatic insects from each of these sites with samples collected from the exact same area over all four seasons. The goal of my research is to identify insects from each of these different sites while also comparing which insects are present across the seasons.

Of course, there are limitations to this research. This is a descriptive study which relies more heavily on relativity in respect to reproducibility. The sampling and subsampling methods will be consistent so that I will be able to compare my results within the scope of my own research. In representing my data, I hope to analyze the number of insects present at each site across seasons, as well as their body size/density and biodiversity.

I am very excited for my project, as bugs can tell us a lot about the types of stressors present at different sites, especially ones so localized to one another. The health of our environment and the ecosystems around us are of the utmost importance, and I am very glad to be contributing to research efforts to improve this.

Hello, everyone! My name is Rena, and I am so thrilled and honored to be part of BSURF.

The main reason I applied to BSURF was for the exploration component of the program. There are so many opportunities at Duke, and I want to take advantage of them all before deciding any specific pathway and career. I feel like there is no better time to explore than the present, and I feel strongly that BSURF is a step in the right direction for getting my foot in the door and also learning more about new subjects.

I am in an ecosystem and ecotoxicology lab, working heavily with aquatic insects. In just my first week, I have already learned how to identify macroinvertebrates (though I will need to put this into more practice), became an engineer (sort of) with a structure I built with my mentor for subsampling insects, and all about the watersheds around our area and how we can study their different components. And there are still seven more weeks in the program to do more field work and get more experience in dichotomous classification of aquatic macroinvertebrates.

As you can see, I am already learning so much, and this access to and exploration of new knowledge is really what I hope to gain from BSURF – this is what research is to me! Moreover, I have already had so much fun through this program: getting to visit Dr. Grunwald’s house and going to the farmer’s market, and much more to come.

So, all in all, I am looking forward to learning and having fun while I am doing it. I greatly appreciate the opportunity the BSURF gives me for summer research and exploration in that regard.

(Also, if you feel so inclined, look up caddisfly larvae. Their faces are so cute, and some build little houses for themselves!)