Izabella, Rodrigues: 2D Differential Growth Models and Vitrification for Marine Conservation

Posted on by Izabella Rodrigues

This is my first blog post on this WordPress site… so let’s see how it goes! 

This summer has been full of so many cool research discoveries. First off, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to South East Asia with a friend (my clone and soulmate) Emma Louise and her wonderful and amazing family <3. We traveled to Singapore, which was a lifelong bucket list item for me and got to see the Singapore Botanical Gardens, the Gardens by the Bay, the public transportation, and amazing infrastructure. It was cooler than I expected, which was a high bar to live up to.

Image of a visually striking cactus with interesting growth patterns.

Then, we went to the island of Bali in Indonesia and stayed in Amed, a coastal town on the north shore and got to go snorkeling for hours every day. I was absolutely giddy every single moment in the water. I got to swim with sea turtles, squid, star fish, nudibranchs, turbinaria, symphyllia, parrot fish, angel fish, rectangular triggerfish, and so much more. The biodiversity was absolutely insane, but the corals were dying. I feel so privileged to have done a lot of free diving and snorkeling off the south coast of Maui at the Molokini Crater when I was a lot younger and I remember seeing the corals so much more healthy and vibrant just a few years ago. I cried a little bit in the water seeing how much coral bleaching has happened. There was so much coral washed up on the shore which made for walks along the beach with mixed emotion. On one side.. how cool!!?? I get to see all of these corals up close and touch them and examine them!!, but on the other hand… they were all dead.. and I knew why. 

Photo of the beach at Amed, Bali. In the foreground is the waves and black sand. In the background is a sunset and the active volcano Mount Agung which erupted most recently in 2017.
Photo of the beach at Amed, Bali. In the foreground is the waves and black sand. In the background is a sunset and the active volcano Mount Agung which erupted most recently in 2017.
Image of shells, sea ceramics, sea glass, coins, and corals found on the beach in Amed.
Image of shells, sea ceramics, sea glass, coins, and corals found on the beach in Amed.

Finally, after Singapore, I headed straight to Chicago for The Association of Computing Machinery: Creativity and Cognition Conference! It was my first time attending a conference and I was a co-author on a paper that was accepted! If you want to check it out it is called “Different and Boundary Pushing:” How Blind and Low Vision Youth Live Code Together.  It was an amazing HCI conference and I’m super excited to submit to more and hopefully attend some more in the future. I was thinking about doing a PhD, but this experience really solidified it for me. I was super excited to see how much environmental related research was published at the conference. It gave me excitement for the research possibilities I could be a part of in grad school.

Image of Bella smiling ear to ear after they presented their research at the Creativity and Cognition Conference

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