Four University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Marine Option Program (MOP) students recently participated in the annual UH MOP Symposium held April 18 via Zoom and brought home awards, including Best Research Presentation, which has now been won by UH Hilo for 27 of the past 32 years.
Sofia Ferreira Colman, a sophomore, won Best Research Presentation for her work on “Seascape Ecology and 3D Photogrammetry can Elucidate the Relationships between Coral Patch Characteristics and Chaetodontidae Assemblage Patterns at Laehala, Hilo.
Junior Clara Whetstone won Best Internship Presentation for “Internship with Ocean Era: Hawaiian Macroalgae (limu) Culturing Techniques for Future Offshore Demonstration.”
Jastine Honea, a senior, won the Pacon Award for the project involving the best use of technology with a Pacific focus. Her project was on “Patterns of Morphological Variation in an Introduced Population of Peacock Grouper Cephalopholis Argus around Hawaiʻi Island.”
Senior Kainalu Steward co-won the Craven Award for the Most Inspired and Inspirational Presentation by a MOP “Child of the Sea” for his project on “Investigating Spawning of `Alamihi (Metophograpsus Thukuhar) in Relation to the Hawaiian Lunar Calendar and Tidal Changes.”
“These MOP students carried out amazing projects, and were outstanding representatives of UH Hilo at the Statewide MOP Symposium,” said MOP Co-Coordinator Lisa Parr.