Sarah Hamsher

Sarah Hamsher

PhD Student

My love of algae began as a sophomore at Juniata College where I did independent research projects with Dr. Todd Gustafson and Dr. Doug Glazier.  After graduation I had a variety of jobs including a park ranger position at Raystown Lake, an internship with The Nature Conservancy studying ‘butterflies on the rifle range’ at Ft. Indiantown Gap, and finally a permanent position at The Nature Conservancy PA Science Office (now a branch of Western PA Conservancy) assisting other staff with terrestrial invertebrate fieldwork and data management.

After a few years, I was ready to return to school to study diatoms as indicators of water quality with Dr. Morgan Vis at Ohio University.  To learn diatom identification I attended 'diatom camp' at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory.  After completing my Masters degree I went on to work for the USDA, the Lancaster Ohio drinking water plant, and The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in the Phycology Section.  It was at the Academy through the tutelage of Dr. Marina Potapova and Dr. Eduardo Morales that my fascination with diatom taxonomy blossomed.

I first met Dr. Saunders at the Northeast Algal Symposium in Poughkeepsie, NY.  I was looking for a supervisor interested in allowing me to focus on using molecular techniques to further investigate diatom taxonomy and he was willing to expand his lab to incorporate the wonderful world of unicellular algae.

My PhD work is focused on using a short piece of DNA (DNA barcoding) to identify diatom species. The 'classic' DNA barcode (a 650 bp region of the COI-5P of the mitochondrial region) does not amplify or sequence easily. The next step is determining the best alternative barcode marker for this unique group of algae. Towards these ends, we are collaborating with Drs. Katharine Evans, David Mann, and Aloise Poulickova. Sellaphora isolates will be used to each marker’s ability to discriminate among sister pairs of species and culture collection material will be utilized to further explore the ease of developing universal primers, ease of amplification, and resolving power of each marker.

After we have determined the best alternative marker for DNA barcoding, we will use these markers to identify the marine tube-forming diatoms that can found in abundance as macroscopic colonies along the rocky Canadian intertidal.  Currently, I'm spending time diatom gardening and working towards optimizing DNA extraction from small amounts of material. After the molecular data has been acquired, I will compare these data to detailed LM and SEM morophological analyses.  

During my PhD at UNB, I am the voluntary webmaster for a number of websites including: the Saunders Lab (since 2007), the Biology Graduate Student Society (since 2008), and the North American Diatom Symposium (since 2008). Managing these websites has taught me how to organize an effective website, what updating a website involoves, and has allowed me to interact with many students and professors that I wouldn't have met otherwise. Being a webmaster has also allowed me to effectively volunteer for these 'organizations'. This year, I am also co-coordinating the Biology Department Seminar Series. This involves inviting speakers, arranging for their travel, managing our budget, and setting up the room before the seminars. It has allowed me to interact with many professors and professionals outside of my field.