Elaina Thomas ’18 is heading to Lost City aboard a research vessel called Atlantis.
“I get emotional reflecting on it,” says Thomas, a recently graduated biology major. “A couple of months ago I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing after graduation. I definitely didn’t think I’d be spending a month in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Thomas’s lab work with assistant biology professor Rika Anderson ’06 served as build-up for the research cruise at Lost City, a hydrothermal field known for its dark, hot, and potentially ancient ecosystem—the kind of setting some scientists believe generated life. Anderson’s personal recommendation helped Thomas land one of the coveted spots on the research vessel Atlantis.
Before her ocean voyage, Thomas practiced at Carleton’s version of an aquatic research laboratory, Lyman Lakes. With help from fellow summer researcher Viola Li ’19 (Nanjing, China), she collected several liters of Lyman water to run experiments in the Hulings Hall lab. They found viruses using the same method that sewage treatment plants employ—adding iron chloride to a sample, which is then filtered to examine the viruses that “stick.”
“I haven’t even done this type of collection before,” Anderson says. “Elaina is using updated methods that are much better. She’s really helping to lead the way at Carleton.”
Empowering students to take ownership of their research is a guiding influence of Anderson’s summer lab mentorship. “I treat my students like graduate students, and they rise to the challenge,” she says.
Collaboration with professors is built into the future of science at Carleton. Deeply invested partnerships between faculty members and students—as well as peers across disciplines—are a strategic part of the new integrated science complex, which will feature a dedicated computation lab that will place summer researchers side-by-side in the same room.
“I love that research students will be sitting together and learning from each other,” Rika Anderson says. “Research at Carleton intersects across the sciences so much that shared space is really what liberal arts learning looks like.”