51°µÍř

Dyllan Furness, Director of Communications

Even before the fire was extinguished at its primary research facility, the College of Marine Science sprang into action. Workdays were arranged at homes and nearby offices unaffected by the blaze. People gathered around tables in conference and dining rooms to commiserate and discuss next steps. Some shed tears. Some served meals. Many found comfort in each other’s company.

For those who called the Marine Science Lab (MSL) a second home, the aftermath of the fire has been one of the most challenging events in their professional careers. But despite the loss of access to offices, labs, and critical research and equipment, people have powered on.

“The response is truly inspiring,” said Tom Frazer, dean of the College of Marine Science. “This tragic event has greatly disrupted research and education at our college, and that’s enough to bring anyone down. But our students, researchers, and support staff have ramped up their efforts and demonstrated their commitment to each other and to this program.”

Into the fairy forest

The fire, at first, seemed like a roadblock to doctoral student Alejandra Aguilar Enriquez. In April, she received an award to present at a premiere international conference on mangrove ecosystems, her area of study. The conference, which takes place this summer in Okinawa, Japan, is the first time Aguilar will present her research overseas since successfully defending her proposal and passing her comprehensive exams in the spring. She was so excited she started learning Japanese.

But critical samples Aguilar needed to complete her research were in the heavily damaged MSL building. Without the mangrove sediment cores, Aguilar’s research couldn’t continue. Months of effort seemed lost.

“Knowing that she had an important conference coming up and didn’t have access to our lab and samples, my goal was to help her stay on deadline,” said Brad Rosenheim, a professor of geological oceanography and Aguilar’s advisor. “That meant going into the field to get samples to replace some that were thought were gone in the fire.”

A little over a week after the blaze, Aguilar, Rosenheim, and , a professor in the School of Geosciences who also had an office in MSL, headed to Apollo Beach dressed in long sleeves, cargo pants, sunglasses, and bucket hats.

“Our morale was honestly low, so we decided to do something rather than sit around waiting,” Aguilar said. “We visited one of the natural mangrove sites that we call the fairy forest because it’s a magical place.”

After several hours of trudging through deep muck, they emerged from the forest with their clothes completely soiled and their sediment samples collected.

“It was difficult and messy,” Aguilar said. “We lost parts of our shoes in that hike, and we shed some tears. After everything that happened, it was a really a cathartic experience.”

Later that day, Aguilar received some surprisingly good news. The salvage crew operating at MSL recovered Aguilar’s original sediment samples. They were intact.

“Now at least I have replicates, just in case,” she said.

Most of the tools that Aguilar used to process her samples are still inaccessible, so the next hurdle was finding alternative equipment — simple items like beakers and sophisticated instruments like centrifuges. Luckily, colleagues at the College of Marine Science and offered equipment and lab space for her to complete her research.  

“The support of all these colleagues has been amazing,” Aguilar said. “Without them this wouldn’t be possible and I am beyond grateful for that.”

Thanks to the quick efforts of her team and support from local and regional collaborators, Aguilar is optimistic she will meet her deadline. With Okinawa on her mind, she hasn’t given up on learning Japanese.

Back on Tampa Bay

Professor Steve Murawski and his team are no strangers to disasters. Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, scientists from USF were some of the first on the scene, collecting water samples and other critical information near the site of the blowout. Murawski’s team went on to lead 18 institutions and $36.6 million in funded research responding to the spill.

But the fire at the MSL was different. This blaze hit much, much closer to home, and threatened to disrupt new research looking at contaminants in Tampa Bay.

“When I heard about the fire, I grabbed my keys and drove to the peninsula,” said , the lab’s assistant director of marine research and development. “It was quite a shock to see. I was convinced there was no way anything would be salvageable.”

For more than a year, members of the lab have spent multiple days each week collecting fishes, barnacles, and oysters for the . They store the samples in freezers in MSL.

In the few days following the fire, salvage crews recovered from the building a significant number of freezers containing troves of biological and geological samples from around the world. To many people’s surprise, most of the samples appear viable.

“This glimmer of amazing news gave us the nugget of hope we needed to shed the despair, put on our field gear, and continue our mission,” Gilbert said.

Determined to maintain momentum, the team scheduled fieldwork just a week after the fire. They met before sunset, packed up supplies in a new, unfamiliar lab space, and joined their charter captain at the dock.

“At this point in our research, these captains are not just part of the project, they are friends,” said Layne Leggett, a master’s student in Murawski’s lab. “They checked on our team after the fire. That meant a lot to us.”

Over the course of five hours, the team traversed Tampa Bay, hitting multiple sites in the north and middle regions of the estuary. At each destination they hopped out of the boat — sometimes wading through chest-deep water — to gather samples of barnacles and oysters.

“Fieldwork is always so much fun and reminds me why I fell in love with this field in the first place,” Leggett said.

Back at the college, the windswept crew unloaded the new samples into freezers borrowed from researchers in adjacent buildings. Despite the odds, and with the help of colleagues and friends, their research continues.

For Gilbert and Leggett, the fire is a reminder that the College of Marine Science is not defined by a building — it’s defined by its people. And those people are passionate, compassionate, talented, and determined.

“We are training an incredibly resilient next generation of scientists,” Gilbert said.

Memorial Day marked the end of one year sampling barnacles and oysters for the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project, a milestone that had all but vanished in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Now, Leggett said, she feels more motivated than ever to carry on her impactful work.

“I feel even more inspired to continue our research and show our determination and resilience through this tragedy,” she said. “Especially with our research having possible implications for human health, it is so important to push on, get results, and communicate what we find to the Tampa Bay community.”

Inside MSL

On Tuesday, May 12, a few personnel from the College of Marine Science were cleared to enter the charred facility to help retrieve items that held high research, monetary, and sentimental value. 

Donning hardhats, N95 masks, and gloves, Chad Silva, Doug Myhre, and Ethan Goddard went into MSL under the watchful eye of USF’s Environmental Health and Safety Department. They divided the space to conquer their objectives, locating and carefully removing items before depositing them in staging areas outside the facility. 

In one instance, Myhre rescued hard drives from a lab that contained years’ worth of academic articles.

In another, Goddard learned that an international student left their passport and other valuable items in their office in MSL. Acting fast, he entered the student’s office and retrieved the backpack containing their belongings. 

Word eventually arrived of a missing item that weighed heavily on one student: a turquoise thumb drive containing their master’s thesis. It was last seen in MSL. 

“We understand the anxiety and heartbreak of losing something you put so much time and effort into, so we wanted to do whatever we could to locate the drive,” said Myhre, an IT manager who has been at the college since 1993 and knows the facility like the back of his hand.  

Locating the small, brightly colored object proved challenging. First, they searched through flash drives salvaged from the building. No luck.

Silva then scoured various computers removed from MSL and placed in storage containers on the peninsula. He came up empty. 

Finally, Myhre went back into the building to check around the student’s work area. After several minutes of scanning among the papers, pens, and books that remained inside the office, he saw it — sitting on a side desk, the turquoise thumb drive. 

In the staging area outside, Myhre held the thumb drive high and flashed a big smile. 

“It was a team effort,” he said. “Chad searched in one place and I searched in another. In the end, I’m just glad we found it.” 

Silva agreed. 

“Everyone has been contributing in different ways to help move things forward while continuing operations as though this were a small bump in the road,” he said. “It has been encouraging to see everyone come together, support one another, and work toward a common goal. I’m grateful to be a small part of such a dedicated, collaborative, and hardworking team.”

Notably, for Goddard, the enthusiasm of graduate students to help in recovery efforts has been awe inspiring. On short notice, he said, students arrive to campus in teams, prepared do anything that needs to be done — whether that means sorting, lugging, and loading tens of thousands of samples, or salvaging thousands of pounds of sediment cores from cold storage systems. Their work ethic shows their passion and dedication to the college and each other.

“Our grad students are united in their ambition to make lemonade out of this giant lemon,” Goddard said. “They have shown up for each other, hugged each other in the parking lot, and worked so dang hard for the college. I can’t overstate how inspirational they’ve been.”