Diving In

First-year student makes waves

April 29, 2008

First-year student Kelly Maers has a passion for aquatic research and hopes to share that interest with the campus.

Kelly Maers '11 has already made a name for herself through her cards, her lectures on proper aquarium development and her scientific publications—and, as a first-year student, she's only just begun.

Maers' passion for marine biology began at an early age. In order to raise money to start her own aquarium, at age 12 she began making handmade cards and sold them at craft shows.

"After my aquarium was funded, people still wanted to buy more cards," Maers says. "So, I decided to keep making them and donate the money to charities."

Samaritan's Purse, an international relief foundation, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, an organization that trains guide dogs, and Corporate Angel Network, which arranges air transportation for cancer patients, are Maers' favorite organizations. Over eight years, she's raised approximately $2,000.

"It's a good way to help support nonprofit organizations and show people how they can make a difference," she says of her booth at craft fairs, where she displays information about each organization and how last year's donations were used.

Her desire to give back extends to her marine biology interests as well.

After six years with her own saltwater aquarium, Maers decided that for her senior high-school project she would give a lecture in the local library about properly developing an aquarium.

"At the lecture, members of a freshwater aquarium club were there," she says. "They contacted me to speak at a Pittsburgh Marine Aquarium Society club meeting, and soon several societies in the area wanted me to give lectures."

The lectures led her to a research job with an organic-chemistry professor at The Pennsylvania State University.

The research focused on aquarium water purification by using carbon to absorb impurities as well as a skimmer method that mimics ocean waves and causes proteins to coagulate. She will continue research this summer on coral coloration and genetics, and her work has contributed to three publications in Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine.

"I worked in an organic-chemistry lab with 14 grad students," Maers says. "That got me interested in graduate school and doing research on this campus."

To accomplish this, Maers has made a proposal to install a 500-gallon research aquarium in Dickinson's new science complex.

"Penn State has a similar aquarium for student research and to educate local elementary school kids about habitats," she says. "If we had a research aquarium here, pretty much all the sciences and other departments would be able to use it, particularly to educate people about the danger our oceans are facing."

While she continues the proposal process of figuring out placement and funding, she is looking ahead to her time at Dickinson as a biochemistry & molecular biology major.

"I really want to spend one semester in the Turks and Caicos Islands and one semester in Australia," she says. "After graduation, I want to attend grad school in the tropics to study marine organisms and the toxins that corals generate."