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Sapelo celebrated Earth Day this past week by going out for a litter pick-up on some of the island roads. There isn’t as much out here as on the mainland, but there is certainly more than there should be! UGAMI and DNR employees banded together to form a litter-hunting coalition, filling up several trash bags and even finding some unlikely treasures. Litter negatively impacts communities all over the country, and it doesn’t take long to get a few folks together and make a big difference!

“It takes dedication to do this sampling! Dr. Kristine White of Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia, visited UGAMI this past weekend to build on her lab’s research of amphipods on Nannygoat Beach, here on Sapelo. Amphipods are tiny crustaceans that occupy a tremendous number of niches within aquatic ecosystems, both marine and fresh water. The ones that Dr. White is after right now are infaunal, meaning they live within the sediment. Shovel in hand, Dr. White and her team braved record low temperatures to gather data on vertical distribution and species diversity of these key organisms. If you would like to learn more, Dr. White has a great Ted talk about amphipods available here , along with some great pictures.”

The Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Program (GCE LTER) is looking for undergraduate interns for summer 2026! Some opportunities are limited to students who have not yet graduated. All positions will receive either a stipend, see the GCE website for details. Most internships last ~8 weeks between May and August. However, start and end dates are flexible based on the schedule of the intern and supervisor. Please read the position descriptions carefully as some positions have different requirements, dates, and/or locations.

Link to online application

The deadline for applications is 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, March 1, 2026. For more information on these opportunities, please contact Io Hennessy at io.hennessy@uga.edu.

Click here to preview the questions asked in the online application.

As part of a lab exchange funded by the Organization for Biological Field Stations (OBFS), the UGAMI staff had the opportunity to visit the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences of the University of South Carolina on 1-3 December 2025. Folks at the Baruch Institute gave tours of the facility, which includes housing, laboratories, and meeting spaces. UGAMI staff got a chance to meet their counterparts at Baruch and discuss common challenges and best practices. The visit culminated in a visit to the historic Baruch family home at the south end of the Hobcaw Barony highlighting the rich history of the area.

To complete the exchange, Baruch staff are scheduled to visit UGAMI in early 2026. The lab exchange is part of the OBFS mission to support capacity development of field stations across the United States.

UGAMI hosted the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership’s (IGEL) coastal Georgia session this past weekend. IGEL focuses on advancing the knowledge and skills needed to address Georgia’s environmental challenges and includes individuals from state agencies, academia, and the private sector. The program featured talks from guest speakers in coastal conservation and management, a tour of the island, dinner in Hogg Hummock at Lula’s Kitchen, and a kayaking excursion from Racoon Bluff to the shore of Blackbeard Island. The trip’s coordinator wrote afterwards to say “The stay was fantastic, the renovated rooms were wonderful, the food was excellent, and the trip overall was a huge success!”

The UGAMI campus is bordered by South End Creek, which runs past the Power House before connecting to Doboy Sound. The creek has a bulkhead along most of its length to prevent erosion and protect the campus from flooding. However, the bulkhead has been in place for more than 40 years old and parts of it are severely deteriorating. UGAMI is partnering with the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve on a design that would allow us to replace much of the structure with a living shoreline, which is a nature-based solution that uses marsh vegetation and oysters. This past week we worked with Daniela Di Iorio (Professor, Dept. of Marine Sciences) to deploy an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) to collect high-frequency data on current flow in the creek for the next 60 days. This data will be important for our design, as it will give us information on “how goes the flow”.

The UGA Global Engagement Office hosted a two-day Study Away Fair at the Tate Student Center in Athens on September 16 and 17, 2025. The fair allowed UGAMI to showcase our residential programs, including Marine Biology (Spring 2026), Salt Marsh (Maymester 2026), and Coastal Ecology (Summer 2026), as well as internships available on Sapelo Island. Several alumni from the Coastal Summer 2025 program were present to share their experiences with attendees. The Study Away Fair is an annual event that typically hosts over 50 exhibitors, including UGA faculty programs, international partners, and domestic field study programs. Events like these allow us to broaden UGAMI’s presence on campus in Athens and expand our networks with international institutions that offer similar programs.

List of alumni helpers:

Vivian Poley, Victoria Cone, Riley Casteel, Bianca Christy, Darion Deviez, Alaina Campbell

It has been long time coming, but we are proud to announce the completion of two major renovation projects that will provide improved accommodations for our visitors. The apartments on the main quad are now both finished, with eight new bedrooms in each half of the building. We have added a central stairway with a deck that connects the two sides, and a ramp that provides access to the building. The second project is the installation of two modular cottages in Magnolia Circle. The new cottages have four bedrooms each and are designed for visiting researchers. They have taken the place of some of our oldest trailers, and are part of a larger plan to modernize the housing stock at the Marine Institute.